And of course, being a good lawyer, the professor's answer is a long version of "Well, it depends."
Right? I guess what he's really saying is there's a lot of nuances the court of public opinion isn't going to take into consideration.
Correct. A lot of the reactions I saw (including from people I know in-person) went to the extremes ("It's ridiculous that they would charge the parent!" or "It would be ridiculous NOT to charge the parent!"), but just by knowing a little bit about this area of the law I was pretty sure the actual legal issue would end up being more complicated than most people assume it would be.