Last August, I wrote about the case of Sean Flaim, a student who was expelled from the Medical University of Ohio after pleading guilty to charges of felony drug possession. Here's my summary of how the expulsion worked:

...two days after his arrest, the Medical University of Ohio suspended him until such time as all "external investigations/hearings [were] completed." Flaim was informed that regardless of what the legal system determined, he would not be allowed to resume his studies until he agreed to an internal investigation conducted by the school. Flaim requested this internal investigation after pleading guilty to the lesser felony charge. The university held a hearing at which Flaim was allowed to have counsel present, but was not allowed to communicate with his lawyer during the hearing itself. Flaim was also prevented from cross-examining witnesses, which included the arresting officer. At the end of the hearing, Flaim was informed that the investigating committee would prepare a recommendation for the dean. That report was never written, but Flaim nonetheless received a notice of expulsion for "violation of institutional standards of conduct" from the dean shortly afterward. When he met with her, he was told that the school had a "zero-tolerance policy" for drugs. No more particular reason for the expulsion was offered, and Flaim was told he would not be allowed to appeal. When Flaim tried to pursue the matter, he was told he no longer had rights at the university because he was no longer a student there.

Sean Flaim saw the post, and wrote to request an opportunity to comment. I invited him to do so, and here is what he has to say on the subject of due process, felony convictions, and academe:

A careful review of the case is revealing, in many ways, of how courts view disciplinary actions in an academic context.

The central argument of the case was that the reasoning for school disciplinary hearings is two-fold, an issue that was decidedly side-stepped by the Circuit Court. The first point of a hearing is to determine guilt or innocence, the second is to determine punishment. In a criminal trial, due process is provided for both reasons and thereby a just result obtained both in terms of guilt, but also in terms of punishment. Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court (Ring v. Arizona and U.S. v. Booker) bear out the importance of proving beyond a reasonable doubt not only guilt or innocence, but also the elements of the offense, which if proven, will justify the sentence.

In the educational context however, the Sixth Circuit has basically ruled that guilt or innocence is the only factor requiring due process. By starting from the assumption that Flaim's (my) guilt for a criminal offense automatically justified the abrogation of normally required due process procedures, the court sidestepped the central issue that guilt or innocence was never a factor in the original disciplinary hearing, or for that matter, the lawsuit itself. The only issue raised was the ability of myself to present the case for a lesser punishment than expulsion. In that context, the process received by me was decidedly substandard, something which the Sixth Circuit alluded to again and again during the decision. While due process required in an academic setting will never be that of a courtroom, there is something to be said for allowing a student to make an effective argument in his or her favor, something which even the court admitted, I was denied.

The decision is so narrowly drawn from the factual scenario laid out in the original complaint that the case can almost be read to state that in all cases OTHER than criminal conviction on felony drug charges of a medical student, a fairly substantial amount of due process would be due a student being disciplined. In retrospect, this was the result I desired most if I were to fail at the appellate level. I lost the case, but I think in the end, I won the battle for my soul. I know what I did was wrong, but I am damn sure what MUO did was equally as wrong.

Flaim plead guilty to felony drug possession *while* in medical school. Why *should* a medical school commit to the professional training anyone who has exhibited such poor judgment or poor self-control at the very beginning of his medical career? As a physician, I can't think of a valid reason why the school should allow this student to continue. Once in professional school, the typical excuses of ignorance, foolishness, bad company, etc. just don't wash.

Flaim's argument conflates two senses of the word "punishment": (a) what the state inflicts upon convicted criminals -- e.g., fines, prison terms, etc. -- and (b) what an institution does when it expels people from membership in it. But these are very different kinds of actions, with very different purposes. In expelling a person from school, a university is usually concerned not with retribution or rehabilitation, but with maintaining the integrity of its community. That sort of action can't meaningfully be compared with decisions of the criminal justice system -- especially since what one such institution (in this case a medical school) does is not binding upon other similar institutions.

Flaim wants to say that since due process in the courts mandates attention both to questions of guilt/innocence and to questions of just punishment, then the same must apply to to decisions institutions make about their members. But that just doesn't follow.

Once in professional school, the typical excuses of ignorance, foolishness, bad company, etc. just don't wash.

If only the AMA were to hold practicing doctors to such stringent standards.

I won't hold my breath.

Exactly my point. As a medical student, I was being helf to a higher standard than a practicing doctor. Rehabilitation is the norm for those already practicing. In fact, administrators at most other medical schools I contacted during the course of the case for supporting data, were suprised that MUO just summarily expelled me rather than offer some sort of rehabilitation program.

As far as I recall, chemical dependency is a disease. Is it not the role of a doctor to treat a disease?

S

Alan Jacobs hit the nail on the head. Courts have long held that colleges and universities are not held to the same standards of due process as the criminal justice system is and have long given significant deference to them in managing their disciplinary systems. The courts have essentially held that so long as a student is given notice of the charges and an opportunity to respond, their obligations are met. Most schools' systems offer more due process than they are required to (appeals, multiple avenues of adjudication, access to documentation, etc), but the courts have usually allowed schools to provide the bare minimum, as they did in this case.

I guess I don't get what Sean Flaim's point is. It starts out as a legal argument and then devolves to "It's not fair, because look at that guy!" I feel bad for him, I do, but he comes across as a weasel ("...the case can almost be read to state that in all cases OTHER than criminal conviction on felony drug charges of a medical student..." -- uh, yeah, Sean. Almost.) trying to lawyer his way out of the mess he absolutely did make for himself.

He'd be better served, IMHO, to stop his lobbying, go to rehab, push (sincerely or not) the "It's a disease! I was the victim of a disease!" angle and reapply. Med schools will be far more willing to give a second chance to that figure than they will to someone who dragged their colleagues to court and launched a public campaign to embarass them.

I completed rehab proper (and as most people know remain in aftercare for the rest of my life) before the hearing at MUO even took place. I do not plan on reapplying to any medical school, and without responding directly to me, you can only assume what my intentions in writing about the decision are, albeit wrongly. I can accept disdain against me personally (though perhaps it's my actions that should generate the disdain, certainly my "judgment" as the first commenter wrote shouldn't be attacked because I am suffering from a disease that affects my judgment); I can even accept being called a "weasel"; and I certainly accept my responsibility for my actions. What I don't accept is that a school that purports to train "healers" decides that an individual it is training, who is in the process of dealing with and healing from a grave disease, isn't worth trying to heal. This isn't about a personal crusade of mine about MUO. It's about the concept of the Hippocratic Oath, one I took the very first day I became a student. It would be just as applicable to any other medical school, though, as I have learned, any other medical school would not have behaved in such a fashion.

The legalistic arguments are just that, legalistic. The original blog entry was about a lawsuit. My response was about my feelings in the aftermath of the lawsuit. The point, if inartfully made, was that the lawsuit itself has provided significant rights to students, as I said were not "convicted...[drug] felony [while] a medical student..." Perhaps I misunderstood the purpose of this blog; e.g. developments and or things of interest in higher education. The development was a significant court decision laying out a foundation of rights for students in disciplinary hearings that, in my opinion, will be a defining ruling to provide guidance to college disciplinarians on what they need to provide students at a bare minimum; a decision which brings together many disparate prior rulings into a cohesive whole. While the narrow holding of the ruling was that the college complied in my (as the court states) "rare" case, they definitively assert, in dicta, that these procedures would not suffice in most other cases.

As for the distinction between due process between criminal courts and academic proceedings, I believe that point was made in my posting. However, is there real argument that a school should strive to uphold not just the narrow bottom floor that the U.S. Constitution lays out for providing due process, but rather procedures that give the student fundamental participation value in procedings that could result in his dismissal? If you don't believe so, perhaps a trip to www.thefire.org would give many a lesson on the liberties that institutions of higher education take with their students.

I don't believe that a college or university should provide due process equivalent to that provided by the criminal justice system, as a college or university's ability to sanction is dramatically less than a court of law's and the resources are generally not available for colleges and universities to conduct such investigations and proceedings. Because of their responsibilities to other students and their reduced burden of proof, colleges and universities have and should retain broad discretion in the adjudicaton process.

That said, I've been involved with student conduct for ten years, and each of the five schools I've worked at has provided more than "some kind of notice" and an "opportunity to respond." All have provided very specific written notice, the right to appeal, and access to information leading to the charge. The school I'm currently working for provides an appeal to the president of the university and allows the student the choice between a formal and an informal adjudication process. There are times when it may well be necessary to use an abbreviated process, but it's simply good practice to offer a more due process than is required.

The court found for the medical school in this case, but as Mr. Flaim notes, the decision was hardly a ringing endorsement. Though I agree with the decision, I'm surprised that the university did not allow for more due process than it did ... the court in Goss v. Lopez noted that "longer suspensions or expulsions ... may require more formal procedures," and I'm surprised that the court did not in this case.

While I agree with the court's findings, a recent comment made in the Assocation for Student Judicial Affairs Law and Policy report notes that this case is, as Mr. Flaim notes, very narrow. While that article supported the decision, it noted that a similar case where a criminal conviction is not involved would likely be decided differently.

"The legalistic arguments are just that, legalistic."

Do you mean that they are LEGAL arguments, or are you disparaging them as LEGALISTIC? To call something legalistic is to imply that it's obsessed with form over substance.

"...a school should strive to uphold not just the narrow bottom floor that the U.S. Constitution lays out for providing due process..."

Narrow bottom floor? No offense, but you did plead guilty. If you had instead chosen to wring all the due process you possibly could out of the system, I suspect you would have discovered that it's hardly narrow, and certainly provides vastly more protections than any academic disciplinary process does or should be expected to do. I've read dozens of federal habeas corpus petitions by state prisoners: there's really so much opportunity out there to redress perceived wrongs that it's hard to imagine a system that did more, and even more difficult to imagine any such system that would actually work.

"...but rather procedures that give the student fundamental participation value in procedings that could result in his dismissal?"

What does "fundamental participation value" mean, if anything?

Flaim: What I don't accept is that a school that purports to train "healers" decides that an individual it is training, who is in the process of dealing with and healing from a grave disease, isn't worth trying to heal.

But surely this is a distorting, evasive, and ultimately wrong-headed way of putting the matter. I'm not in a position to say whether Flaim indeed suffers from a "grave disease," but he was expelled from medical school because he committed a felony, not because he had a disease. Even if the disease somehow led to the felony -- which I grant only for the purposes of argument -- it's ridiculous for him to suggest that it is because of the disease itself that he was expelled. Flaim needs to remember that the argument he has made could be used with equal validity by many pedophiles or rapists. In certain contexts what matters most is what we do, not what the etiology of our actions is, and if Flaim really does (as he says) take responsibility for his actions, then it's time to drop the "disease" talk whether he believes in it or not.

Flaim's attempts to take the moral high ground vis-a-vis the medical school are a distraction from what I think the real issue is here, which is whether the school should have a different policy for hearing appeals and/or re-admitting expelled students. We know they are not legally bound to have a different policy than they do, but should they? That's the legitimate question obscured by Flaim's attempt to situate himself as an ill person being unfairly deprived of healing.

Well, it is interesting to see that this blog does serve the purpose it was made for. Indeed, it seems (except in the case of Tait Ransom) to have brought out perhaps the most outrageous of the academe; in fact the comments for this blog entry could almost qualify as a typical example of a type of narrow thinking that has pervaded most college campuses in this country.

For example, delving into the exact wording of a response to criticize little bits, rather than the cohesive whole. "Legalistic" means "strict, literal adherence to the law or to a particular code." The commenter adds the perjorative meaning that this means obsessed with form over substance. Rather ironically, it is the commenter in that VERY same sentence, makes it known the he is obsessed with form (the use of the word) over substance (what the comment as a whole means).

Further, nobody can seem to get over the fact that I pleaded (and was) guilty of felony drug possession (though the plea was to "attempted" possession). That was in the criminal court system. That doesn't obliviate a school from providing due process (well Joe Administrator, he got due process over there, we don't have to give him any now!)

In fact, the most amusing thing is to see felony drug possession (in Ohio), which federally would be a misdemeanor offense, and in many other states a misdemeanor is somehow being grouped together with sexual relations with a child or the unwilling. "Equal validity?" Hardly. I know of no DSM IV disease called "pedophilia" or "rape" though I'd believe that many of the perpetrators of those crimes were, at the least, suffering from anti-social personality disorder (which isn't a disease).

Were you at the hearing itself, perhaps you'd know that the felony conviction wasn't even the topic of discussion. The disease was. Therefore, the premise that the commenters use, and the court for that matter, wasn't the same premise the school used for their decision. In fact, the school never articulated a premise for the dismissal until forced to when suit was filed against them; to this day, nobody knows what the true basis the school used in its decision to dismiss, we simply know what the best defense its lawyers could come up with. It was only the premise they manufactured during their "legalistic" argument against my suit.

As for the moral high vs. low ground? I have never equated a disease with morality, nor my conviction for simple drug possession with immorality (in fact, moral turpitude is a criteria they use when determining when an immigrant convicted of a crime should be deported. Simple drug possession is not considered a crime that involves moral turpitude and therefore can not be grounds for deportation). The ground I walk on is with my own two feet; I continue my path through life, having learned a lesson that I will never forget about my own frailty and the results that can come from giving into that frailty.

My abiding desire was to see the institution that I went to, with many professors and friends that I have there that I admire, adhere to the principles that were articulated during my first week there. These principles included healing the sick. They included treating medical students the same as they treated doctors, holding them to the same standards (which I understand is also how law schools treat law students; e.g. to the same ethical standards as practicing lawyers). All in all, I simply expected that if the school promised me something, be it a good education, or a fair hearing, I would get it.

The fact is, I did not, which the Court decided was acceptable because the procedures, while decidely substandard and in almost every way contradictory to the school's published policies and promises made to me, were Constitutionally adequate in light of my particular situation.

Those that seek some underlying subtext to this perhaps would better be more concerned with, as Mr. Jacobs put it (after lumping me in with pedophiles), whether the school should, morally, follow its own policies and in fact, try to salvage a student as the medical profession would have tried to salvage a doctor. He is accurate in that the legitimate question, asked in the lawsuit, was not only where the school could draw the line, but also where it morally ought to. The Constitution controls the former, a sense of basic fairness should control the latter.

Try reading more carefully, Sean. You weren't "lumped in" with pedophiles. I made a point about the kind of argument you were using, and pointed out -- correctly -- that this kind of argument can be used by others whom I'm sure you would not want to see getting away with it. The fact that what you did is not like pedophilia or rape was precisely my point.

Whatever came up or didn't come up at your hearing, Sean, institutions of higher education are deeply (pathologically?) concerned with reputation, and the fact that you are a "known felon" would certainly influence their decisions more than the fact that you were a drug user. Like most institutions, colleges and universities tend to deal more gently with offenses that remain private; once something goes public they become fierce in the protection of their public appearance. I was basing my comment about why they dismissed you on that well-known behavior rather than on any assumptions about what went on at the hearing. Whatever they said or didn't say, you can bet that one thing and one thing only was on the institutional mind: reputation.

So, did they allow their concern over their reputation get in the of giving Sean Flaim a fair hearing? Probably. Should that failure be actionable? I'm not so sure. Wouldn't that be tantamount to saying that in effect every institution has to follow the same due process, regarding its members, as a criminal proceeding must?

Alan, thanks for your clarification. I still think your argument itself is basically a straw man type of argument. There is no equating simple drug possession with the other crimes you mentioned, and therefore the argument that I made could not possibly be made in good faith (or even bad faith) to an institution.

I am well aware that the institution's reputation is the main, even the overriding factor in its decision making processes. However, I believe their reputation would have been better served by living up to their promises and procedures and giving me a fair hearing, then still dismissing me, than they now have as being known as an institution that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a veiled manner, chastised their disciplinary procedures at every step of the process, although in the end agreed that the ends justified the means.

To me, and to any student, and probably to most people, the means should be just as paramount as the end result.

MUO is a public institution, and thus falls under the purview of the Fourteenth Amendment when it wants to take away something away (a property and liberty interest) from a student. The question isn't should every institution have to follow due process. That is a solid fact of Constitutional law; they must provide due process. The question is where on the sliding scale of due process does the institution want to fall. On the bare minimum side, which most any person or institution has decided against, and the Sixth Circuit now publically chastised one for? Or simply on the side of following an established and fair procedure (with the exception of not allowing appeals, which to this day they do not, in contravention of the LCME accreditation standards for medical schools), which most certainly in the end would have resulted in the same end result? It was never argued that they must follow the procedures of the criminal court; it would be silly for an institution of higher learning to have to divert the resources it would take for such a hearing away from their main mission of teaching. The Constitution states they must allow due process, but due process can be as simple as "some kind of notice" and "some kind of hearing." (Goss v. Lopez, disciplining public secondary school children.)

Anybody who thinks that I went into the suit expecting to win, or at least expecting to win anything more than another hearing with some basic procedural protections in place, where the same result could be decided after a fair and impartial hearing and an explanation for the decision, doesn't understand the psychology behind my decision to go through with this. It wasn't about returning to medical school. It was about the medical school doing the right thing in the right manner. Not the expediant thing, not the thing that places their own reputation, as you said, pathologically, over the value of their students.

In the end, I took a blow to my own liberty (my name is now etched in case law for years to come, my indiscretions are now laid open to the public view in permanancy) to try to make the point that the ends never justify the means. I lost. But as I said in the very beginning, without trying, the price would have been my soul.

A small point: Ring and Booker (cited by Flaim)are progeny of Apprendi, which makes an exception for the necessity of proof of a prior conviction for use in punishment (sentencing) determinations for a current conviction. Flaim pled guilty in a criminal proceeding, where, it is assumed, he got all the due process the law requires. The use of his criminal conviction to establish a fact at his expulsion hearing doesn't, as Flaim seems to suggest, fly in the face of Ring, Booker, or other progeny of Apprendi.

I'm fairly certain I never used the term "fly in the face of" I just brought up those two cases (and could have brought up Apprendi) to show that due process serves a dual purpose. The exception of which you so speak was sort of irrelevant during the proceeding because the very first thing I stated was "I am guilty of possessing drugs." They didn't have to admit it as an aside, I admitted it openly in the opening of the hearing. I specifically stated directly afterwards that "the only thing we are doing here today is discussing what MCO will decide to do with me." What point would there be in me doing otherwise; e.g. making up excuses, fingerpointing, denying things, etc.?

Cie la vie.

So, you have a due process right to decide, at an expulsion hearing, what the university policy should be with respect to persons convicted of a felony while in med school? If that's your big argument, it's a clear loser. Did you present that claim to the 6th Circuit? If so, I suspect it got creamed; if not, I think I know why.

You've got no valid due process claim. You just think the punishment is too harsh. It clearly does not "shock the conscience."

I believe I had the right to clearly defined procedural process and transparent proceedings. Perhaps if you actually read the case and all of the preceding comments, you could add something of value.

Prehaps someone should also read up on the difference between substantive due process and procedural due process. Those two comments "shock the conscience" with their mediocrity and lack of knowledge of the law, the case, or perhaps, much of anything else at all :)

Small wonder you got kicked out of med school, you self-justifying fool. Everyone is out to get you, right? I think you've shown your ass on this one. I'm pretty sure you're the only one who's impressed by your cursory (to be generous) comprehension of the law. As for your late field of study, I wouldn't let you cut my toenails, "Doc." Your allusion (and nothing more) to the difference between procedural and substantive due process is especially risible. Suppose you explain the difference, and the pertinence to your "claim" to everyone, Brandeis.

Let's just say that I refuse to get into a battle of wits with the unarmed.

If you have something that contributes to this thread as a whole, e.g. the understanding of the Sixth Circuit ruling or its potential after effects, please let us all know.

Just what do you have a substantive due process right to, sport? I've dealt with hundreds of claims from prisoners that actually had more arguable merit than your lame issue. Erin, is this auto-didact's "reasoning" really the sort of specious argumentation you want to get behind? This guy is pathetic. He's latched on to a few buzzwords (like so many of the inmates I've dealt with) and convinced himself that he either got railroaded (laughable in light of his guilty plea) or was shortchanged on some technicality (contra the 6th Circuit's opinion and despite his total inability to specify what it is he was denied).

Then give your best reasoning and analysis of the ruling and my comments to same so that this poor self-taught person can bask in your wisdom. I think we are all waiting for a coherent argument that lacks the ad hominem self-indulgence that makes your comments so enlightening :)

You didn't start this thread, Ben Casey. And the request was not only for comments that agreed with your position, whatever that is. At bottom, what is your point, other than you wish the med school had offered you some diversionary drug counselling while allowing you to continue your coursework? In light of your guilty plea, how would cross-examining the arresting officer have kept you in school?

Far be it for "Satori" to engage in ad hominem arguments. (See his earlier remarks about academics and previous commenters who aren't buying his sob story for amusing evidence to the contrary.)

Really, Kildare, I want to know what it is your argument comes down to, other than, "Surely, you guys have to give me another chance."

Too true. I wanted comments, both good and bad (and in your case ugly.) I believe my 10:14 a.m. response made my main point. Thanks for a comparison to Ben Casey by the way. An exceptional show well ahead of its time.

As to cross-examination, both discrepancies in his oral testimony (to the police report and otherwise) as well as mitigating circumstances could have been introduced. You seem to be familiar with the criminal justice system. Ever known a police officer to exaggerate the bad points and wash over the good ones? Or has your "habeus corpus" experience jaded you a little to much to the way an officer is used to "testifying." He could have even described the other medical student arrested at the same time who wasn't charged with as much (just simple marijuana possession) and is now in his fourth year of residency.

Besides...why pick up on just that one point. You have made it sound like you have an overarching position on every point of the case. Please, enlighten me/us. I assume that you have a point as well. Then again, my father always taught me the assuming anything makes an *ss out of u and me.

The correct spelling is "habeas corpus."

Here's the bottom line: (1) you were given sufficient notice, (2) you were heard.

Some more relevant matters:

(1) you pleaded guilty to the felony that formed the basis of your expulsion.

(2) anything brought out by cross-examining the officer would not do away with the fact that you pleaded guilty to that offense in a criminal court, where the burden of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt."

(3) you may have wanted to perform some irrelevant hi jinks at your expulsion hearing, but no one, especially the law (and the 6th Circuit), was being buffaloed by your self-impressed baloney.

(4) I repeat, you believe the school policy was too draconian. That's your opinion. That's not the law, though. Sorry.

I forgot. . .procedural vs. substantive, in brief:

County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833 at 845 (1998): “We have emphasized time and again that ‘the touchstone of due process is protection of the individual against arbitrary action of government,’ Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 558 (1974), whether the fault lies in a denial of fundamental procedural fairness, see, e.g., Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 82 (1972) (the procedural due process guarantee protects against "arbitrary takings"), or in the
exercise of power without any reasonable justification in the service of a legitimate governmental objective, see, e.g., Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327 at 331 (1986) (the substantive due process guarantee protects against government power arbitrarily and oppressively exercised).”

or more briefly: Gorman v. University of Rhode Island, 837 F.2d 7 at 12 (1st Cir. 1988)

“The time-honored phrase ‘due process of law’ expresses the essential requirement of fundamental fairness. Yet, it ‘does not impose an
unattainable standard of accuracy.’ Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385 (1914). Hence, the procedures employed in a disciplinary action must be tested by the extent to which they comport with the requirement of fundamental fairness.”

You asked, I answered. I invite you to read the briefs if you have further comments.

Actually...had the school followed their policy (in reference to your no. 4) there wouldn't have been a lawsuit. That was the problem. Not that the punishment was draconian, but that the process was curtailed, promises broken, and things unheard. The law may allow it, but the law, as stated endlessly is the bottom floor below no one must tread. It isn't the ideal.

I'm getting the feeling that the only thing irrelevant here is the animosity you are showing for a complete stranger. Obviously there is some subtext to the raw display of disdain and anger you have for me. Please enlighten me.

You got procedural due process, slick. (I invite you to reread the 6th Circuit's opinion if you have further thoughts on the matter.)

No, I don't want fries with that order, Sean.

Yeah...I got it. Because I was convicted of a felony; and only because. In ANY other situation that court would have trampled the "process" that school gave. Each step of the process was analyzed according to the Mathews criteria and in each case the school barely squeaked by. Hence the thought provoking nature of the decision and the substantive rights it gave students not in my situation. Hence my posting my feelings about it in the first place.

Still you avoid the larger question. Such severe animosity for a complete stranger; what is the bigger picture here?

No, no particular animosity. The assignment was to comment on a case. While it may be the most important thing in the world to you, the result of your case was not that remarkable. That is my take on it. That seems to irk you. That you are irked and moved to be a wiseass about it, irks me. Maybe I should just be amused. You really don't have a case. I'm sorry. That's all. By the way, I believe the criminal sanctions for drug crimes are generally too harsh. I'm just not sure I have a real big problem with med schools booting students who get convicted of drug-related felonies while in med school. Doesn't seem too unreasonable. Certainly doesn't shock the conscience. Nor do the conditions of your expulsion hearing trouble me. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Well...pardon me, but if you commented on the case as much as you commented about me personally, perhaps I would have been more impressed with your take on things. The case brought together a variety of disparate rulings from within and without the Sixth Circuit into a cohesive whole, and will, without question, be a case that guides schools in the Sixth Circuit. Of this, Judge Martin assured me, there is no doubt.

The conditions of my hearing irked me, but as you said, the Sixth Circuit felt otherwise. Perhaps they are the wiser; I can't begin to second guess any of the appellate panel judges because I've read decisions by all of them and hold each of them with the utmost respect. My argument was considered by the panel to be one of the most articulate they've seen. But my conviction was the more potent factor in their opinion. As I said before, cie la vie.

BTW. Dr. Kildare? You really are dating yourself there. Early 60's black and white. Dr. Gillespie (pee?) would be proud.

"As I said before, cie la vie." Yes, you have. It's "c'est la vie". Ce = it, est = is, la vie = life.

I'll date myself here, Sean. I'll be 45 on Friday. Are give me a break and I irrelevant because we're not 24?

I was reasonably interested in reading about all this until you showed up in the comments section whining because the medical school wasn't totally perfect in its handling of your "disease" (give me a break, too.). In other words, it's OK for you to do whatever you please but other people had better act with perfect reason and procedural correctness. Grow up, buddy. Sincerely.

I didn't begin the personal attacks, and I believe I acquitted myself well when being subjected to them, endlessly, and in a vile and disgusting manner. You comments about age are (exceedingly) irrelevant. I wasn't saying that GMAB being older was a bad thing, I was simply commenting that "Dr. Kildare" is a pretty old show (and pretty corny at times.) Your age, his age, my age (which isn't 24) is, point-blank, irrelevant.

So you don't believe in the disease. May I suggest a couple of meetings of A.A. for you? It might do you some good if you have that narrow of a mindset regarding chemical dependency. You sit in a meeting, as I do each week, and see the destruction that alcohol and chemicals wreak on people's lives; and then you stand up and say, "well you are all a bunch of weak fools responsible for your own actions." That is if you are heartless enough to do so.

Your interpretation that I'm saying "I can do what I please" is, to put it mildly, B.S. I didn't do what I pleased, I self-medicated for a disease I didn't even know I had. The only people who "did what they pleased" were the administrators at MCO when they ran roughshod over every promise they ever made to me and every other student in their desire to get me out of there as quickly as they possibly could.

You know the ironic part? The committee most likely voted to keep me there and let me continue in treatment. That's why their report was never written, and it was the administration, not the committee that dismissed me. That's some due process.

By the way. I thank you for the French lesson. Your invaluable assistance has saved me from years of not giving a damn.

That really is too rich. You "self-medicated" with LSD, cocaine, and ecstasy? What kind of Rx is that, Doc? And here I thought Huxley and Tim Leary were no longer with us. May I suggest a first step on your long road to "recovery," DJ Jazzy Jeff (Satori seems far off): avoid raves, where the use of "El Cid" and X are rampant. Or maybe everyone there is just "self-medicating" for illnesses they aren't aware of.

You people are too much. You think you understand everything about chemical dependency (and cross-dependency) and make considered judgments with your so-called knowledge. Most people who are chemically dependent self-medicate to treat profound depression. Ecstasy, cocaine, most other addictions can trace back to that one simple truth, that the depression is so overwhelming, but unrecognized as such, that the drugs are taken not just to "feel good" but to feel right. Have any of you ever thought to do a lick of research before spouting your absurd comments for all to hear?

Take the drugs I had and substitute a good SSRI and now I have no desire to return to the place where I've been. You, my friend, have no right to judge that which you know nothing of. Of course, I doubt that will stop you. A person unwilling to learn can not be taught.

Wow, is that some kind of Zen koan?

Your problem is you don't realize how full of bull you are. Or maybe you do.

"Police found ecstasy, cocaine, L.S.D., a nine millimeter hangdun, and $9,500 in cash in his apartment." This is depression? Hm.

I have done a lick of research, actually. The idea that the high rate of illegal drug use among mentally ill people is due to self-medicating the illness is NOT universally accepted.

I don't think people who "don't feel right" are forced to procure and use illegal street drugs. Even if you are addicted now, at some point you exercised free will, and now you are paying the price. The medical school didn't want to graduate a doctor who was already a street drug user - good for them.

Maybe you need to reread the Sixth Circuit's opinion, Sean. The Court didn't say the school did anything wrong. The Court didn't say the hearing procedures deprived you of due process. In fact, the opinion expressly stated that the requirements of due process were met. While more due process could have been provided for, the requirements of the Constitution were met. Read that opinion, Sean. The Court rejected all your claims. What does that tell you? And, yes, it is significant that you pleaded guilty to a crime in a criminal court. Did you think your cross-examination of the officer at an expulsion hearing was going to obviate that fact? That fact alone was enough to justify expulsion. What is it you're still complaining about? That the requirements of due process were not exceeded to your satisfaction? That you couldn't cross-examine the officer? That you should be given another chance? Remember, Sean, you're the one who committed a drug-related felony while in med school. And yet, you still claim that the school was more in the wrong than you were. Haven't had that satori yet, have you?

Police found four types of drugs, a nine millemeter handgun and $9,500 in cash. Notice how is doesn't say that that was what they found in "my presence." I had three other roommates including another medical student. The list is of everything found in the house, not my personal control. Notice how I was not charged with handgun possession while committing a felony. Notice how your assumptions go straight out the window.

As for the rest of the non-attentive, let's borrow a few quotes from the past:

"My abiding desire was to see the institution that I went to, with many professors and friends that I have there that I admire, adhere to the principles that were articulated during my first week there. These principles included healing the sick. They included treating medical students the same as they treated doctors, holding them to the same standards (which I understand is also how law schools treat law students; e.g. to the same ethical standards as practicing lawyers). All in all, I simply expected that if the school promised me something, be it a good education, or a fair hearing, I would get it."

"I am well aware that the institution's reputation is the main, even the overriding factor in its decision making processes. However, I believe their reputation would have been better served by living up to their promises and procedures and giving me a fair hearing, then still dismissing me, than they now have as being known as an institution that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a veiled manner, chastised their disciplinary procedures at every step of the process, although in the end agreed that the ends justified the means."

"Anybody who thinks that I went into the suit expecting to win, or at least expecting to win anything more than another hearing with some basic procedural protections in place, where the same result could be decided after a fair and impartial hearing and an explanation for the decision, doesn't understand the psychology behind my decision to go through with this. It wasn't about returning to medical school. It was about the medical school doing the right thing in the right manner. Not the expediant thing, not the thing that places their own reputation, as you said, pathologically, over the value of their students."

"[It] is accurate in that the legitimate question, asked in the lawsuit, was not only where the school could draw the line, but also where it morally ought to. The Constitution controls the former, a sense of basic fairness should control the latter."

". . .had the school followed their policy [] there wouldn't have been a lawsuit. That was the problem. Not that the punishment was draconian, but that the process was curtailed, promises broken, and things unheard. The law may allow it, but the law, as stated endlessly is the bottom floor below no one must tread. It isn't the ideal."

"[T]he very first thing I stated was 'I am guilty of possessing drugs.' They didn't have to admit it as an aside, I admitted it openly in the opening of the hearing. I specifically stated directly afterwards that 'the only thing we are doing here today is discussing what MCO will decide to do with me.'"

I think that about sums up a lot of my arguments to date. The tangents to which people who are too afraid to identify themselves they use continually changing pseudonyms and email addresses so they can continue to spit their ire behind a cloak of anonymity really tells me a lot more about them than they could ever know about me.

I know what the Sixth Circuit said. It said the school gave me the bare minimum and "that is perhaps less-than-desirable for an institution of higher learning." Apparently any school that gives you "some kind of notice" and "some kind of hearing" is a school you want to be at. I hope you enjoy your stays there.

Why is it so important to you that the medical school do the right thing? It's not important to you that you do the right thing, so why the bizarre obsession with holding the medical school to some kind of stellar standard? Especially if you agree that you would and should have been dismissed anyway? That's really kind of weird, Sean.

All we have here is a whiner with a persecution complex who can't believe he wasn't able to talk his way out of trouble with the school after pretty much skating with a sweet deal in the criminal proceeding, obtained through the ministrations of mommy and daddy.

Is that a special skill of DJs, Satori, talking out of both sides of your mouth? You claim that you accepted responsibility, yet you're coyly deflecting the drug and gun possession to your roommates. If they weren't your drugs, DJ Satori, you shouldn't have pleaded guilty. You claim, at times, that the sole issue is the propriety of the "punishment" of expulsion, yet you continue to complain that you didn't get all the due process you somehow think you're entitled to (despite the law). You have yet to explain how the process you were purportedly deprived of resulted in your expulsion. You haven't explained it, because you can't.

I'm glad you avoided jail time in the criminal case, as it would probably have been an injustice (though large amounts of cash and guns around all those drugs do raise some touchy questions, and probably would have led to some serious time for someone from a less privileged background).

By the way, all the drugs ("How did they get there?") are "rave" drugs, DJ Satori, including the LSD-like DOB. Paxil just doesn't cut it at those raves, does it?

Again...anonymous comments by an ever changing persona...are really not worth my time thinking about; even if the person believes in their validity, they don't believe in not hiding behind anonymity to attack someone who has never hid his identity, nor really attacked back (except sarcastically).

To Laura,

Blame the smoker for their first cigarette; blame the alcoholic for his first drink; blame the marijuana user for his first toke; blame the cocaine user for his first snort. That's your right. But to deny the disease that can follow each is sheer fallacy. Again, stand up in a group of AA and yell aloud "It's your own fault for starting to drink in the first place."

Kind of amusing when people immersed in the rave culture pitch a fit when they can't game the legal system by acting like innocent victims.

Not a good idea to provide email addresses to gun-toting acid heads.

Satori, I wouldn't dream of going to an AA meeting and standing up and saying anything. But if a "recovering" alcoholic initiates a conversation with me, I'll say what I please, and I have. You're right, the first cocaine snort is inexcusable. If you do have an addiction, and your addiction does rise to the level of disease, your problem still started out with your willingly and knowingly performing a criminal, stupid, career-destroying act. You think that you deserve all possible consideration here, and that it's your right and privilege to police the medical school and make sure they strictly adhere to some lofty standard of behavior. And that this quest to police the medical school involved a battle for your soul. I think that is truly bizarre.

You see Laura, you nailed it on the head. You walk in the doors of medical school and they teach you that you are now a doctor, part a profession that is such a lofty pursuit that they are held to impeccable standards above that of normal human beings. Physicians as supermen if you will. In the mean time, the profession has double the rate of chemical dependency (and for that matter depression) and they try and sweep those things under the rug to protect the image of doctors as pseudo-gods.

I went to the school for two plus years, being immersed in that sort of viewpoint, though most of the time viewing it from a sort of sideways chagrin when they attempted to place physicians above regular people. Then, I saw the real truth that underlies the stories they preach about morality and social justice, about the role of a physician as a healer. I saw that underneath it all, it was really just a bunch of petty people too concerned with their own reputation to really believe in the principles that were drilled into my fellow students and I.

Well pardon me for remaining an idealist and believing that the true role of physicians isn't to execute sentences like the criminal justice system. I believed in the ideal of a physician as healer and in the social justice that they preached. I got a rude awakening, albeit because of my own actions. The link between, as I say, my "soul" and the action is just that. I fought for the ideal I learned that I still believe in all the way to my very soul.

YR, will you just get lost? You are friggin boring at this point, you have nothing to add but more irrelevent BS which means more to you than anybody else. Maybe a good rave will cheer you up.

Cheers :)

"Well pardon me for remaining an idealist and believing that the true role of physicians isn't to execute sentences like the criminal justice system. I believed in the ideal of a physician as healer and in the social justice that they preached."

And I believe in some really mindblowing windowpane acid.

Swelling of strings.... Montage of scenes of monumental importance in American history.... Sounds of laughter from people not buying it....

Hey, didn't Otter give that speech in Animal House?

Do you really think that there are more than 2 other people in the world (your parents, maybe) who agree with you that you got a raw deal?

Deep in gloomy dens of stone
live the creatures men call trolls
(though what they call themselves it seems no one ever knows)

Creeping forth to prowl at night
They scowl and growl and give great fright
To unwary pilgrims whose last sight
is of gruesome trolls in firelight...

Stonehenge, where the demons dwell
Where the banshees live and they do live well
Stonehenge
Where a man is a man and the children dance to
the pipes of pan
Stonehenge
Tis a magic place where the moon doth rise
With a dragon's face
Stonehenge
Where the virgins lie
And the prayer of devils fill the midnight sky

And you my love, won't you take my hand
We'll go back in time to that mystic land
Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow
I will take you there
I will show you how.

"Stonehenge" by Spinal Tap

(Turn in up to 'leven, Nigel.)

"Justification involves evaluating an action, which should be undertaken for a purpose, given some knowledge. The statement is therefore incomplete, because pure ends-based justification says that no consideration is needed to determine whether the action can reasonably be expected to accomplish the goal. It would be better to say that the ends determine the means. Case in point: life. If you accept life as your goal, then there are certain things you should do and other things that you should not do. So given that goal (end), certain actions are justified. You cannot justify the goal itself -- the choice between existence vs. non-existence is outside the realm of reason. What needs to be justified is what you do in service of that goal."

the Ends vs. the Means.

S