The question is not precisely whether you are making this up, but whether your judgment of who is in the wrong is correct. I believe that a conference organizer offered to let someone attend for free, then midway through the conference, revoked that offer.
I am not certain whether the conference organizer or attendee is in the wrong. In short, your story has a perspective—and there is nothing wrong with that. But the tone of your essay is not internally consistent, or consistent with the message of the essay.
To put it differently, the organizer might say:
Running this conference is very expensive. I desire that everyone be able to attend for free, but I don’t have the ability to do that. Instead, I offer free admittance to worthy folks that I select. It is very important to me that attendees at the conference participate fully. Thus, the people I admit for free are required to attend all the essential sessions. I’m sorry if I didn’t communicate the attendance requirement or essential session list with sufficiently clarity that everyone understood my position, but that’s the way things are. If you think you can run a conference on this topic better than I, you are welcome to set up your own, with your own rules.
Such an organizer might be legally liable for some costs (on a breach of contract or other legal theory). Such organizer might be morally wrong, or a very stiff necked jerk. But such a person would not be delusional or mentally ill.
Tim, the distinction is moot from the point of view of the poor bastard getting screwed in all this. Anyone with a shred of empathy can see that. It’s especially bad since these are explicitly young people, most of whom are not going to be economically well off, which is why they needed the scholarship so much in the first place!
I don’t think our mutual friends to whom this email was sent would agree that it’s ok to screw them with an enormous, unexpected bill because your contract was garbage and it would hurt the program’s budget to treat them fairly (in some crazy scenario you’re suggesting may be possible). I don’t know of any reason why the cases last year couldn’t be taken to court except that nobody tried or it wasn’t worth it. But you’re a lawyer so maybe you can answer that...
The question is not precisely whether you are making this up, but whether your judgment of who is in the wrong is correct. I believe that a conference organizer offered to let someone attend for free, then midway through the conference, revoked that offer.
I am not certain whether the conference organizer or attendee is in the wrong. In short, your story has a perspective—and there is nothing wrong with that. But the tone of your essay is not internally consistent, or consistent with the message of the essay.
To put it differently, the organizer might say:
Such an organizer might be legally liable for some costs (on a breach of contract or other legal theory). Such organizer might be morally wrong, or a very stiff necked jerk. But such a person would not be delusional or mentally ill.
Tim, the distinction is moot from the point of view of the poor bastard getting screwed in all this. Anyone with a shred of empathy can see that. It’s especially bad since these are explicitly young people, most of whom are not going to be economically well off, which is why they needed the scholarship so much in the first place!
I don’t think our mutual friends to whom this email was sent would agree that it’s ok to screw them with an enormous, unexpected bill because your contract was garbage and it would hurt the program’s budget to treat them fairly (in some crazy scenario you’re suggesting may be possible). I don’t know of any reason why the cases last year couldn’t be taken to court except that nobody tried or it wasn’t worth it. But you’re a lawyer so maybe you can answer that...