Controversial reports taken

The IU Police Department said they will not pursue any suspects after about 500 copies of a report concerning the IU School of Law's affirmative action policies were taken from student mailboxes.\nIUPD said Scott Dillon, who graduated this month, reported that he assembled and placed the 12-page information packets in the law students' in-house mailboxes during the morning of May 6. According to the report, Dillon said the information was taken from the mailboxes later that night or early the next morning.\nDillon refused to speak to the IDS about the issue.\nDillon, who has advocated against racial quotas in the past, had obtained IU School of Law admission statistics in early April and distributed the packets that he claimed proves a quota system based on racial status rather than student qualifications. \nIn an e-mail sent to select members of the IU community, including current students, administrators and alumni, Dillon said his report showed "a 50-percentile point gap in the LSAT achievement between African-American admits and non-minority admits to the law school" during the period from 1990 to 1999. \nFollowing the distribution of Dillon's packets, which are believed to have been received by a few students before the alleged theft, law student Carl Butler sent a letter addressed to his fellow law school students. \nIn his rebuttal letter of Dillon's information packet, Butler questioned the revelations Dillon claimed his report held, stating, "Because I am unclear about the motive behind sending you such data, I can only explain that the data explains very little about the admissions practices at IUB Law."\nButler's letter continued its contestation of Dillon, saying that "important factors in determining the quality of student (minority and non-minority)" for being admitted to the law school were not taken into account by Dillon's statistics, including "students with lower LSAT scores but very high grades, students with lower grades but very high LSAT scores and the data of students who did not gain admission into (the) law school," among other considerations.\nMonroe County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jim Trulock said students or faculty could file a complaint against the felon.\n"Arguably, one of the intended recipients could file a complaint," Trulock said. He said that could result in possibly charging the felon with criminal trespass over personal property or conversion, taking another person's property without consent. \n"Before we make a charge, we look to see if there is crime and if we can prove a crime," Trulock said. "There might be better ways to deal with situation than the criminal justice system." \nSuch measures could include civil or administrative remedies -- within the law school or within the University.\nIUPD, after talking with the Monroe County Prosecutor's Office about the missing reports, said it found no reason for pursuing anyone responsible for taking them. \n"An officer was sent to investigate, but the problem was determined to be an internal law school issue since the letters were not addressed or mailed," IUPD Lt. Jerry Minger said.\nLauren Robel, dean of the School of Law, said she attempted to inform the law school community of the supposed theft as early as she was notified by Dillon of the situation.\nBetween graduation ceremonies May 10, Robel said, she sent an e-mail out in which she denounced the taking of Dillon's materials from student mailboxes and provided Dillon's e-mail address should anyone want to obtain a copy of his report. \nRobel said she sent the e-mail without any investigation, and hypothesized the packets could have been picked up immediately by students or removed by secretarial or custodial staff for the approaching summer. \nDillon asked Robel to send the report via e-mail, but she said she is not a fan of "spamming the student body."\n"There is no one who can't have those materials by simply e-mailing Scott," she said. \nRobel added some students have complained about receiving unsolicited e-mails from Dillon with the information. But no one has complained that they have been unable to get the materials, she said.\nRobel said the entire event was not something that should happen at the law school.\n"It was outrageous for someone to remove the information packets from student mailboxes," she said. \nControversy has plagued the law school since December when professor Robert Heidt criticized IU law school admissions procedures in the Indianapolis Star. \n"Seeing the photographs and reading the record and personal statements of non-minority applicants whom we rejected in order to admit the far less-qualified left me feeling as though I should wash," wrote Heidt in the Dec. 27 op-ed letter. \nThe law school later filed a friend-of-the-court brief Feb. 26 supporting the affirmative action admissions policies of the University of Michigan School of Law, which is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Heidt said he opposed the Michigan school's admissions procedures and disagreed with the amicus brief. \nDillon, a former IDS columnist, came to Heidt's defense in many of his writings. He left his job in February amid controversy over a political cartoon ran by the IDS concerning affirmative action.