Georgetown University Law School Professor Peter Tague shook up his first year law students a couple weeks ago by announcing that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts was planning to retire. Tauge’s startled students began tweeting, texting and emailing the information during class before Tague revealed that his insider tidbit was, in fact, false.
Tague, who teaches criminal law, was lecturing on credibility of informants. By the end of class, students had learned the lesson that even information from a reliable source —like Tague — can be a sham. But by the time the law students learned their lesson, students had already tipped off Radar Online and soon the rumor spread around the blogosphere.
Edward Sisson, one of Tague’s former students, wrote to AboveTheLaw.com explaining that Tague simply didn’t know how quickly information spreads with the onset of new technologies. “Given that he must be about 70 by now, I am sure he had no idea that with texting there was a danger that anything he said at the beginning of class might get out of the class prior to his correcting the record before the end of class.”
Another student disagreed: “I took Tauge’s crim class in 2002, and he pulled the same trick about Rehnquist. I can only assume he’s been doing the same thing every year for a long time, and each class since sometime before 2002 has been filled with wired laptops. Yet this is the first time someone decided to publish the false rumor. So it’s not just a doddering old fool not thinking that his false rumor would have consequences. It’s a professor who has trusted his students for years, and apparently with good reason until this year.”
In spite of the initial embarrassment, students were quick to defend the exercise as a “good learning experience” illustrating the importance of verifying information.
Ironically, Tague also teaches professional responsibility at Georgetown. His students fully expect an upcoming lecture on the importance of discretion and confidentiality.
