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Professor Charged with Battery for Closing Student's Laptop Screen

By Adam Ramirez on April 11, 2011 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

For many, memories of law school classes include a laptop.

You're sitting there, pretending to listen intently in your Corporations class while you scan fantasy football stats or cute kittens frolicking on YouTube.

Now imagine if that law professor were to make his way over to you and shut your laptop screen. What do you do?

Your a law student, so naturally you would sue him immediately.

Perhaps undergrad Krista Bowman is a law student in training. She is certainly the most infamous student at Valdosta State University.

That's in Georgia, by the way.

Bowman is under fire for pressing charges against assistant professor Frank Rybicki.

He closed her laptop on her fingers while she surfed the web during his class.

The incident in question occurred last week during a Valdosta State Law & Ethics of Media class (of course!) taught by Frank Rybicki. As is standard procedure in university classrooms, students are not to use the web for non-class related surfing.

Rybicki, who believed that Bowman was breaking this rule, walked up to her and shut her laptop screen, reports the school paper, The Spectator. She says it closed on her hands, injuring her.

After class, the student reported the incident to the university's police department, requesting that it press charges, notes The Spectator.

Frank Rybicki was then arrested and released on $2,500 bail. He has been suspended from his job, is under investigation, and is facing battery charges, reports the Huffington Post.

How would you like to be the prosecutor assigned this moronic case? Is it illegal to injure one's pride in Georgia? 

Students at the school seem to feel the same way. Many are speaking out on The Spectator's website, defending Frank Rybicki.

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