Prominent Law School Professor Resigns After Title IX Misconduct Investigation

* He expresses gratitude for those who brought the allegations
against him.

In December, shockwaves went through legal academia circles when
it was revealed that Indiana University Maurer School of Law
professor Ian Samuel was on leave from the school pending a Title
IX investigation. The investigation has ended, and on Friday,
Samuel announced on Twitter that he was resigning from his position
at Indiana, saying he is “choosing to forgo procedural rights that
might (though I doubt it) preserve my job if I fought to the
Pyrrhic end, because the academic year is over and it’s time for
this process to be over, too.”

Samuel’s full statement provides some context for the
allegations against him:

Well, I don’t think I’m breaching any confidences by saying that
the allegations in this case describe me drinking to excess in a
public place I shouldn’t have been, in company I shouldn’t have
kept, and treating the people present in ways they didn’t
deserve.

He goes on to say that the allegations, and the investigation it
spurred, were a wake up call for him that caused him to take a hard
look at his life and the decisions he was making:

When the investigation began, a few people I trust suggested
that maybe it was time to take a hard look at my life. They were
right. Once I was ready to be honest with myself, I had to admit
that the night in question was the clearest sign yet of a problem
that had been growing for some time, and which was going to keep
growing as long as I kept ignoring it. Although that admission
didn’t solve anything by itself, it did beat denial.

Samuel even expresses gratitude for those who brought the
allegations against him:

The truth is that the university’s investigation, in addition to
doing justice, probably had the side effect of saving my life. More
importantly, it’s given me a chance to live the life I’ve got
differently. I was becoming an ugly man, and I needed nothing so
much as a clean mirror and someone brave enough to make me look at
it. Well, someone did, and they did it before my son got old enough
to start feeling ashamed of his father. Not everyone is so lucky.
So I’d be a real ingrate if I felt anything other than admiration
and gratitude for the complainants’ integrity in this case.

He says that leaving his job is an appropriate punishment for
his wrongdoings, and though he doesn’t have a clear path ahead, he
will be taking “another road”:

What I do know is that halfway through the journey of my life, I
lost—through my own grievous fault—the straightforward path, my
sense of right and wrong. It behooves me now to take another
road.

Samuel made headlines last year for publicly disclosing the
mandatory arbitration agreement Biglaw firm Munger Tolles required
all employees to sign. After the backlash, the firm reversed their
policy, and set off an industry-wide look at how forced arbitration
is used at law firms that is still ongoing.

Culled from abovethelaw.com

Subscribe ToNairalaw News!