Dawson, Greg

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No Contest When Hue, Cry is Over Trees, Law School Courts Defeat

Indiana University Bloomington Maurer School of Law

Maurer School of Law: Indiana UniversityDigital Repository @ Maurer LawSheldon Plager (1977-1984) Law School Deans1-21-1982No Contest When Hue, Cry is Over Trees, LawSchool Courts DefeatGreg DawsonHerald TimesFollow this and additional works at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/plagerPart of the Legal Biography Commons, Legal Education Commons, and the Legal ProfessionCommonsThis Misc. Materials related to Dean Sheldon Plager is brought to you forfree and open access by the Law School Deans at Digital Repository @Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sheldon Plager(1977-1984) by an authorized administrator of Digital Repository @Maurer Law. For more information, please contact wattn@indiana.edu.Recommended CitationDawson, Greg, "No Contest When Hue, Cry is Over Trees, Law School Courts Defeat" (1982). Sheldon Plager (1977-1984). Paper 27.http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/plager/27\No contest \\e_x-.-;.,\cl - "\ < \-t.\>b .:.. ,,L \vu:~ \-~ - gz When hue, cry is over trees, Law School courts defeat If, as Joyce Kilmer wrote - I think that I shall never see/a poem lovely as a tree- then what chance did a law school addition have in the court of poetic injustice'? ANY PLAN TO MAKE room for lawyers by removing trees was bound for the kind of recep-tion usually reserved for grown men who steal lunch money from orphans. It is our civic duty to protect trees and orphans from lawyers and lunch-money stealers. Thus, it isn't surprising that a plan to remove some 25 trees in order to make room for a 57.000-square-foot addition to the Indiana University School of Law was greeted by well-honed outrage. "I want nothing less than total preservation of the woods," said David Parkhurst, a botanist and associate professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU. "I thought those woods were sacrosanct." "Those woods" comprise 20 acres and seven ,, · .. Greg Dawson H-T columnist classroom buildings plus the Kirkwood Obser-vatory at the heart of what is called the "old campus." The area, also known as the "Old Crescent," is listed in the National Historic Register. The IU Law School abuts the southwest corner of the Old Crescent. "WE DON'T LIKE IT <removal of trees) , but there really is no other way to add to the law library that we 've been able to figure out," said Craig Bradley, professor of law and chairman of the law school's building committee. "Our library already is undersized in terms of books and square footage. If we're going to do anything about it we have to have a larger space." No one seems to disagree with that. The ques-tion is whether the additional space must come at the expens·e of trees in the Old Crescent. Law School Dean Sheldon Plager insists the $11 million addition will "skirt" the woods and leave them unharmed. Parkhurst and others disagree. "It's like city planning and zoning," said IU biologist David Frey. "Any encroachment should be resisted because it becomes easier to make the next exception.'' AS THE WEIGHING of library space against natural space goes on, however, this much becomes clear: The only parties to the dispute not inconvenienced to date are the trees. So far the orphans are winning. <Page 7, col. 1, this sec.) Vl LHC J.a YV ;.:,\,..UVVl auu l,.U~ Old Crescent. , "I'm satisfied this solu- , lion does no damage to the • natural process of the ; woods," he said. What it did to the human nerves involv-ed is another m: tter. ~Law school library vs. treCS1 ;l (Continued from page I) - The trouble started two : years ago when IU received bonding aut.hority for the - project and Plager began - searching for a site . . He came up with a plan to ex-pand directly east into the Old Crescent, near the • Observatory. A consensus including Chancellor Her-- man B Wells decided that : plan "A," as Plagcr now : calls it, took too big a bite : out of the woods. : Plans B, C and D also _ were rejected . Plager : .-J:hought he had the solution : with plan E, which called : for building the · addition -~.directly south of the law building on the property oc-cupied by the Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) fraternity house. "I spent six hard months of my ' life negotiating with the Fijis, ". Plager said. Both parties thought a deal had been struck last sum-mer - the selling price about $1.5 million, said Ted Dickman, president of the Fiji house. So certain were the Fijis of the university 's verbal commitment, they hired architects. engineers and contractors. Floor plans for the new Fiji house on North Jordan were comoleted and soil borings conducted to test the ground for a foun- . dation. The Fijis were ready to break ground about Nov. 1, then were stunned when the IU Board of Trustees rejected the agreements worked out between the Fijis and the IU negotiating team headed by President John Ryan. "We were totaliy and completely shocked," said Rick Williams , a 1956 graduate and president of the Fiji's house corpora-tion. Richard Stoner, president of the IU Board of Trustees. simply says there was no such money available for that purpose. Plager won 't discuss specific figures but says the Fiji negotiators negotiated themselves out of the deal. "They were trying to get every dollar they could and went too far, " Plager said. "By the time they got through adding a little of this and a little of that, when the final package hit the board there was a general feeling it was too big a package.' ' So it was back to the cor-ner of Third and Indiana for the Fijis and back to draw-ing· board for Plager, who came up with plan F. "It filled up the space between the law school and Bryan Hall - a huge two-block long facade from Third Street to Fifth Street," he said, recalling it with some awe. "The exterior would have looked like the Berlin ·Wall or a penitentiary." Which brings us to his last best hope, plan G, ''which doesn't go into the woods," he said. "It skirts the edge of it along the back side of the building." The irony is that before coming to IU, Plager was an environmental lawyer in Illinois <though not of · the James Watt persuasion, he hastens to add) . He says the needs of institutions and nature need not be an-tagonistic, can indeed be complementary, as he believes thev are in the case . of the law ·school and the · Old Crescent. . "I'm satisfied this solu- , tion does no damage to the 1 natural process of the ; woods," he said. What it did · to the human nerves involv-ed is another m: tter . 

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No Contest When Hue, Cry is Over Trees, Law School Courts Defeat

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