The Next Week

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following is part of the 9 post story “Injustice at K-State,” that documents my interactions with the K-State judicial system. It was originally written November 19, 2012 and was edited over Thanksgiving Break. I published it during Winter Break.]

I came home that weekend and my Dad told me he couldn’t believe how absurd the whole situation was. He told me I’d have a great comedy sketch to tell once it was all over.

I told a friend what had happened to me and she told me that her advisor hadn’t replied to her email in a month. I doubt her advisor was threatened with being fired as a result.

On Wednesday, October 24, I meet with my new advisor, who I had personally requested to be my advisor. He told me that the Office of Student Life had told him they were attempting to contact me. I told him what had happened and he told me to not be afraid to talk to the Office of Student Life if I had any problems.

On Friday, October 26 I found that the Dean had attempted to contact me through my email on September 17, September 24, and has sent me an email on September 25 informing me that she would be filing a complaint against me with the Student Review Board.

“As I warned you in my email to you yesterday, I have placed a hold placed on your account that prevents you from enrolling. It will remain until you have made an appointment and met with me.

Because you have failed to follow repeated directives to schedule an appointment with me, I am also filing a code of conduct complaint for violating Kansas State University student code of conduct item 7. "Failure to comply with directions of University faculty, staff, or law enforcement officers acting in performance of their duties". You can expect the SGA Attorney General to contact you about your hearing options. I strongly encourage you to respond to his messages.”

That same day I went over to my friend’s house and told him the whole story. He couldn’t figure out why the dean wanted to meet with me either.

After attempting to contact me through only one method, the Dean had filed the equivalent of a criminal complaint against me. I faced expulsion simply because I had failed to check my email. The dean had access through Isis to my phone number, permanent and local addresses, class schedule, and my advisor. The Student Review Board had only attempted to contact me one way as well (the same way, I might add) and my friend and I came to the conclusion that the Board had failed to adequately inform me of the charges against me and thus had violated my Habeas Corpus rights.

My friend said he kind of wanted me to be expelled so this story could take its logically absurd end. He also thought it would be funny for me to go on a media tour explaining what had happened and to sue the school for violating my Habeas Corpus rights. If I was expelled, I decided that I would talk to the news media and become the biggest PR disaster that Kansas State University has ever seen.

That weekend I came to the conclusion that the Dean wanted to talk to me about some problems my family had been facing. That explanation fit the timeline quite well. I also prepared evidence for my trial. I printed off a document that showed my 3.68 GPA and a screenshot showing my 1,290 unread emails.