Remember the case a few weeks ago of a professor at Northern Kentucky University leading a group of students in destroying an anti-abortion display on the campus? There are new developments. The district attorney has given the six students involved in the case a plea bargain and they've apparently accepted. In a standard diversion agreement, they will have to do community service and stay out of trouble for a certain period of time and the charges will be expunged. The professor, on the other hand, is going to have to face the full charges.
Why the different treatment? Probably because of two factors. First, she was in a position of authority and she apparently told the students that they would not get into any trouble for it because the group that put up the display didn't have permission to do so (that was false, the group had a permit from the university). Second, because she wrote an email afterwards telling the students not to cooperate with the police and to hide from them so they couldn't question them about what happened. Those two things easily justify the disparate treatment. The students, though adults, were likely to trust a teacher as a representative of the university; the teacher should certainly have known better. Still, she won't be punished severely. She'll end up paying a small fine and getting probation, and maybe some community service as well.