I am "John Doe"

An Ironic Petition

2010-04-15T22:35:00.002-04:00

Have any of you noticed that there’s a new Butler petition housed on the ipetition web site? If so, do you share my amusement in the irony of that petition?

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, let me bring you up to speed. Last fall, a group of my friends (creatively entitled “Friends of Jess Zimmerman”) began a petition demanding that the Butler administration apologize to me and to the Butler community for their crazy actions associated with the True BU blog. (That petition has grown very nicely and all the people who have signed it have been completely ignored by the Butler administration. Take a look and add your signature if you haven’t yet done so. It won’t help, but it can’t hurt!)

Now, the president of the faculty senate has created her own petition to the Butler administration! It seems that the administration, with virtually no input from faculty or students, has decided to do away with the science library. Faculty and students are not happy about the decision and, because meaningful communication on the Butler campus is virtually nonexistent, the president of the faculty senate has had to resort to creating a public petition to give people a voice. The petition is growing rapidly and must be a huge embarrassment to the administration. In a little over 24 hours, the petition garnered over 500 signatures.

But beyond the obvious embarrassment, what can anyone think about Butler when the only way for the faculty senate to be heard is for its president to have to go public with a petition. And I bet most faculty will be too frightened to add their names to the petition.

All I can say is that this is yet another example of the Butler Way!

FIRE assesses the Butler – Duke match-up

2010-04-08T11:56:00.003-04:00

Like virtually everyone else on and near campus, and many around the world, I’ve been incredibly impressed by all the men’s basketball team has accomplished. The players and coaching staff handled themselves remarkably well and their efforts have elevated all of us. They are, however, only a part of Butler University and there are other members of the university community who also deserve high praise for their accomplishments. One of the exciting side effects of the men’s basketball success is that attention beyond the “Butler bubble” has been brought to others deserving of it.

But not all of the attention focused on Butler is good, however. FIRE ( Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), one of the country’s organizations most strongly fighting for free speech on university campuses, offered a head-to-head matchup of Butler and Duke – looking at free speech issues rather than basketball skills. Their conclusions are not pretty!

Their article ran with an interesting headline: “Butler vs. Duke: Who Wins in the Arena of Free Speech?” As they say, given the widely reported problems Duke has had with the way it trampled on the rights of falsely accused players on its lacrosse team and a major embarrassment with its Women’s Center, the contest shouldn’t be close.

But Butler’s actions, coupled with the needless and vindictive aggressiveness of its president, changed the complexion of the contest. As FIRE states, “Butler may be the underdog du jour, but it's shown that it can play with the big boys at more than just basketball.”

After presenting a good summary of my case, mostly from the original Inside Higher Education article and from an essay on Finding Dulcinea, FIRE called the contest a draw:

"Zimmerman said of the saga, "I would have hoped that we could have the trial first and the verdict second, but that isn’t the way Butler has decided to operate." The same, of course, could be said about Duke's handling of the lacrosse scandal. Neither school, then, gets away clean when it comes to respecting student rights. Whether you root for Butler or Duke tonight, know that the Latin saying caveat emptor--let the buyer beware--applies equally to them both."

Butler’s president, then, did what Butler’s fabulous basketball team was unable to do: he played Duke University completely even.

He has some important lessons to learn from Butler’s basketball program. All members of the program handled themselves quite wonderfully, spoke well of their adversaries, took credit for their own actions and looked to learn from their experiences. Butler’s president, on the other hand, continuously claimed ignorance of all actions, charged that his lawyers acted without either his knowledge or approval, and seems to have learned nothing from his brutish activities. He’s not even been willing to offer a simple apology to the campus community (let alone to me) for his actions, despite more than a thousand people calling for him to do so.

Butler has much to be proud of this spring, but, as FIRE has so clearly shown, the actions of its president and its record on freedom of speech issues don’t fall into that category. Instead, they tarnish spectacular accomplishments.

Under the Bus

2010-04-01T02:19:00.002-04:00

Although I didn’t have the energy or the desire to attend last Thursday’s symposium on free speech, my father did go. He reported two interesting facts to me that are worth sharing with all of you.

First, although there was virtually no discussion at all about my situation, all three of the panelists made it clear that the type of actions Butler University engaged in was entirely inappropriate. Repeatedly, the panelists described what they thought were bad things to do under situations similar to our situation and repeatedly they almost perfectly described the actions the Butler administration took.

Second, John Hargrove, president of Butler’s Board of Trustees told my father after the event that Butler has made a change in its legal representation. They are no longer represented by Ice Miller and have moved to Baker and Daniels. While I think that this is a very good move, from my perspective, Ice Miller was belligerent and unhelpful throughout, I do not believe that they were the sole source of the problem. Attorneys don’t act unilaterally!

But it appears that Butler’s president may have managed to shift all blame away from himself and to Ice Miller. It appears that he may have managed to convince the Board of Trustees of his outrageous statements that he was completely unaware of the legal actions taken in the university’s name – from filing a lawsuit against a student to demanding that a student post a $100,000 bond to insure a fair on-campus disciplinary procedure.

It’s hard to believe that competent people could believe statements of this sort, but it appears that Butler’s president has been successful in throwing his attorney’s under the bus while walking away unscathed. Amazing.

__________

On another note, for those of you who have asked, I can be reached via Email at jess.f.zimmerman(at)gmail.com.

Butler is at it Again

2010-03-11T00:52:00.001-05:00

Many of you have noticed that I haven’t been writing much for this blog lately. Some of you have commented on that and have asked for more posts. I definitely do appreciate your interest.

My lack of posts, however, were a conscious choice I made, a choice to try and put this sordid affair behind me, to move on, to see if I could forget the incredibly defamatory statements so many in the Butler administration made about me. Although I still had a great deal to say, you’ll notice that since the middle of December I’ve only posted seven times.

Unfortunately, Butler won’t let the issue die. Just this week, a “Forum on Civic Discourse” was announced for later this month. So far so good. But Butler decided to frame the event within the context of public safety. I don’t see that as an accident. From the beginning, the president has justified his actions (when he’s bothered to say that he was aware of them rather than claiming that others acted without his knowledge) as necessary to protect the safety of various administrators and the campus in general. He raised the specter of the shootings at Virginia Tech to provide cover for his actions. In an act of unbridled paternalism and amazing hubris he claimed that the provost “was afraid, for her own safety, for her husband, for her house and property.”

In essence, he attempted to do what the Bush administration did to great effect: scare people into accepting actions that they would otherwise find completely abhorrent. There were no threats against any person or property made by anyone except by Butler’s high-priced attorney. I made a promise that I would not forget the actions of the provost. Butler’s administration opted to pretend that that was a threat and now they’re holding a forum so we can hear why campus safety is important.

The forum announcement also notes that discussion might include situations where “messages of hate” are prevalent. I doubt that this is an accident either. After all, in his first tirade to the faculty about The True BU situation, the president proclaimed “Butler does not tolerate racial and sexual epithets in the name of free exchange of ideas.” On this blog, on October 15^th 2009, the day the president made that comment, I wrote the following: “Of course I agree with this statement, as I hope all of you do. The thing is, there is no hint of any such despicable language in anything I have ever written. I think that this is yet another attempt to unfairly and falsely attribute to me things that I did not say.” Since that day, I have repeatedly asked the president to point to one example in my writings of a racial or sexual epithet. He hasn’t done so because he can’t: there are NO such examples. But those facts haven’t kept him from repeating this mantra and, by doing so, continuing to defame me.

I wanted to move on but Butler apparently wants to live in the past – a past they are apparently proud of. So many of you have expressed outrage about Butler’s actions and have called for an apology, to me and to the Butler community. Butler and its president, however, don’t apologize. Instead they attack, they defame, they sue, they intimidate and they besmirch the good name of a once-proud institution.

I wanted to move on but to do so now would mean that my reputation isn’t worth anything. That’s why I’ve written this post.

$100,000: The Price of Justice?

2010-02-22T11:27:00.003-05:00

Here’s a question for you to think about: What will $100,000 buy you in our legal system?

I don’t mean who can you bribe for that sum of money, and I don’t mean how much legal representation can you purchase. No, I’m interested in looking at the crimes you would have to be accused of to be saddled with a bond of $100,000.

A random look around the web at bail schedules shows the following:

In LA, you’d be required to post a bond of $100,000 for a felony that could land you in prison for 16 years.

In San Francisco, they’re much more specific. $100,000 would be required if you were accused of assaulting a government worker or car jacking.

In San Diego, you’ve got to be charged with kidnapping.

Note that most jurisdictions that have easily accessible bail schedules don’t list any infractions that have bonds approaching $100,000.

If you search for actual crimes where people had to post a $100,000, you also get some interesting results:

Earlier this month actor Rip Torn posted $100,000 in Connecticut for criminal charges including burglary, possession of a revolver without a permit and carrying a firearm while intoxicated.

Last month a Chicago area man had bail set at $100,000 after being charged with reckless homicide and aggravated driving under the influence.

In December a Seattle man charged with child molestation and exposing himself to a 14-year-old girl had bail set at $100,000.

Also in December a union president in New York City had bail set at $100,000 after being charged with embezzling more than $200,000 of union funds.

And just a little more than a week ago, Dr. Conrad Murray was released on a $100,000 bond after being accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson. Oh wait, my mistake. That was $100,000 in Singapore dollars! He was released after paying only $75,000 in US cash in Los Angeles.

So, it’s clear that $100,000 will buy you quite a bit in most places. You have to have done some pretty terrible things to warrant being required to post such a huge sum.

But, here at Butler University, the situation is very different. Here at Butler University, if you ask for a fair disciplinary procedure, one in which you’re not publicly convicted prior to the proceedings and one in which you are permitted to see the evidence against you, you’re told you have to pony up $100,000. You can read their outrageous request here.

Even more ridiculous, Butler’s president claims he knew nothing about this charge made in his name.

Which sounds right: $100,000 for kidnapping, involuntary manslaughter, embezzlement, child molestation, reckless homicide, burglary with a firearm, or car jacking in most portions of the country or $100,000 to delay your appearance before a kangaroo court at Butler University?

Rhetorical Gymnastics: A presidential Sport

2010-02-16T23:19:00.005-05:00

Two pieces appeared in the latest edition of Butler’s student newspaper that I want to bring to your attention. The first was a news report about the settlement I reached with Butler. The second was an opinion piece written by Professor Bill Watts.

I very much hope that you read both pieces because, in very different ways, they are both amazing.

The news story addressed the fact that Butler demanded that I post a $100,000 bond to delay the disciplinary proceedings against me. Remember, I filed suit asking for a temporary restraining order against Butler because they had demonstrated that they were not prepared to undertake a fair disciplinary process. The judge agreed with me.

The newspaper story broke some absolutely astounding news: “When asked about the bond amount, Fong said he had no knowledge that the action had been taken.” The president of Butler University claimed he didn’t know that his institution had demanded that one of its students post a bond of $100,000? Can anyone actually believe this stuff?

The president has a pattern of denying any knowledge of the most important actions taken by the university in this case. As I’ve pointed out before, he also claimed he knew nothing about the decision to replace “John Doe’s” name with my name in the original lawsuit. Really? I don’t think anyone believed him last time and I doubt that anyone believes him now.

Frankly, though, I don’t know which is worse: that he is so out of touch that he doesn’t know what’s going on in the university in his own name, or that he authorized such an outrageous action and then opted to lie about it. Both options are shameful and embarrassing.

That wasn’t the only amazing piece of news in the newspaper story though. The sentence immediately following the one I just quoted in which the president denied knowing about the bond is also bizarre: “After speaking with university attorneys, Fong said in an e-mail that the bond was merely a legal formality that had to be added to the document for the restraining order to stand.”

Apparently the president is claiming that first he heard of the bond demand was from the reporter, about two months after it was filed with the court, and, upon hearing about it, he immediately contacted the university attorneys (again, note the use of the plural – the university is certainly willing to spare no expense to attack their undergraduates) to ask about it. His response, as reported, is also beyond belief: “the bond was merely a legal formality that had to be added to the document for the restraining order to stand.”

As I’ve done with so many of the president’s earlier statements (see my posts on Oct. 15, Oct. 19, and Oct 27, for example), let me explain the absurdity in what he has said. First, as I noted on Feb. 12, the request for a temporary restraining order that my attorney filed had a place for the judge to fill in the amount of money to be posted as a bond. The judge, as is his legal right, opted not to require any bond at all, for the simple reason that postponing a kangaroo court was not going to cost Butler University any money.

Second, if you read the document submitted to the court in response to my request for a temporary restraining order (a document, by the way, submitted in the president’s name, even though he claims not to have been aware of the most important point in it), you’ll see that the last thing the university wanted to do was to have the restraining order stand; indeed the title of that document begins by calling itself an “Emergency Motion to Dissolve Restraining Order.” Nonetheless, what the president is claiming, is that their demand for me to post a bond of $100,000 was actually their way of doing me a favor. After all, according to his statement, had they not asked for the bond in that amount, my request for a temporary restraining order would have been thrown out and I would have been forced to participate in their kangaroo court.

If you’re as confused by the president’s rhetorical gymnastics as I am, I can’t say I’m surprised. As has been his pattern in every aspect of this case, he refuses to take any responsibility for any action, he refuses to acknowledge any possible errors or misjudgments, and he weaves stories that make absolutely no sense in the belief that people will simply accept them because he is, after all, the president.

This is all simply ridiculous.

As I said above, there were two pieces in the student newspaper about my case. The second was an opinion piece written by Professor Watts. As he has done throughout, Professor Watts asks probing questions in his attempt to hold the university responsible for its actions. I can’t tell you how appreciative I am of his efforts on a campus where faculty are so afraid of what the president will do to them if they disagree with him, that they have to take confession with a priest to get their opinions to the public.

While I recommend his entire article to you, I want to focus on one part because he perfectly captured one of the things that has been bothering me. He noted that “a high university official” explained the “aggressive campaign” against me because that administrator believed that my father was ultimately the force behind The TruBU. Professor Watts went on to say that this is “just another way in which the university has denied Jess his autonomy and personhood.”

Exactly!

The Butler administration seems to have such a low regard for Butler students that no administrator could believe that a student could possibly be responsible for bringing to light all that The True BU brought to light. They simply dismissed my competence and, by extension, the competence of all of my fellow students. Not surprisingly, I have felt incredibly demeaned by their position. Beyond that, why would these people want to be in charge of a university that, in their minds, enrolls such pliable students who are incapable of acting on their own? And why would the University want administrators who clearly hold their students in such low regard?

Let me, again, say as clearly as I can: the information in The True BU came from faculty and staff members who were willing to provide information to me anonymously because they were too scared of administrative retaliation to speak openly. And let me make it clear that my father did not know that I was Soodo Nym.

Let me conclude today by asking why was “a high university official” discussing such incredible things with a faculty member? Isn’t this simply yet another way of defaming another member of my family, something that “high university officials” have felt comfortable doing regularly?

To be completely honest, I think it's about time the University got new "high university officials."

Secrecy and Discipline: The Butler Way – Part 3

2010-02-12T11:43:00.002-05:00

In the first two parts of this post, I pointed all of you to public documents available to any and all, that summarized the struggle I was having with the Butler administration. In the first two parts of this post, because of Butler’s incessant and unfair demand for secrecy, I told you nothing more than what was present in those public documents.

Now, in part three, I will bring this part of the story to a conclusion, but, unfortunately, I will do so in a way that is particularly unsatisfying, at least to me. The overall outcome is certainly not unsatisfying, at least to me, in that Butler and I reached an agreement. But what makes it less than fully satisfying is that I can’t tell you any of the details. As before, I am limited to being able to point you to publicly available documents.

Let me recap briefly. As you can see from my request for a restraining order against Butler, I was forced to go to court to ask that any internal disciplinary procedure be put on hold until the university could guarantee that it the procedure would be handled fairly. Butler’s attorneys responded by ignoring the substance of what my request was all about, instead opting to demand that I put up a bond of $100,000. They claimed that this was the amount of money Butler would lose if they could not discipline me in a secret hearing on campus. Ridiculous! My lawyer replied by further explaining the inappropriate actions Butler administrators had undertaken.

The resolution, except for the secrecy, was a wonderful one for me – and perhaps Butler administrators feel similarly. Upon reaching an agreement with Butler I immediately sent in applications to law schools. And, as I said, within days of filing my applications, I was admitted to one of my top choices.

There are three points that I want to make about all of this. First, my experience has convinced me that it is possible to fight abuses of power – and to win. In my mind, I clearly won, but as I’ll note in my second point, I didn’t win everything. I won not only because I was right; I won because I was able to generate a huge amount of support from people around campus and around the world who saw an injustice and were willing to support me. That support came in many forms, some public and lots private, and all of it was incredibly important to me.

Second, although I believe I was able to win, I feel I lost a great deal in the process. Butler administrators from the president on down, on a regular basis, on campus and off, in public and in private, defamed me. They regularly said that I was guilty of actions they couldn’t prove and actions they knew they had no evidence to link to me. They used innuendo to accuse me of making racially and sexually intolerant statements. They used those same tactics to accuse me of threatening violent acts. And they abused their positions of power by telling anyone who would listen that they knew things about me they couldn’t share – things that were really terrible. The reality is, however, that none of those things ever existed, but it didn’t keep unscrupulous people from implying that they did in their misguided attempt to further their own ambitions.

Third, even though my victory is very real for me, it has to be an incredibly hollow one for the Butler community and for the broader community composed of people who care about civil rights. I believe that it's clear that Butler administrators abused their power and the university’s financial resources in their attempt to stifle criticism. Members of those communities have demanded an apology from Butler’s administrators for their unconscionable actions, but none has been forthcoming. The same administrators who did all of this are hoping that their veil of secrecy will protect them. If we, you and I, let them refuse to take responsibility for their actions, they will never apologize, and they will likely abuse others in the future. I hope you do at least two things to help prevent this from happening. I hope those of you who have not yet signed the petition asking for an apology sign it now. And I hope that some of you begin asking the Butler administration just how much money they spent in legal fees in their persecution of me. At a time when Butler is cutting budgets related to teaching, if not related to the provost’s remodeling schemes, don’t you think that this money could have been more profitably spent?

Again, I want to thank you for your support.

Secrecy and Discipline: The Butler Way – Part 2

2010-02-01T22:35:00.006-05:00

In part 1 of this post I did a number of things. I broached the subject of the cloak of secrecy that Butler uses to cover all actions, thoughts and events it doesn’t like. I explained how I have been ordered by that administration to refrain from providing any details about Butler’s internal disciplinary process – even while university administrators felt comfortable proclaiming my guilt to anyone who would ask. And I presented a document filed with the Marion Superior/County Court in an attempt to correct much of the wrongdoing that those same administrators were perpetuating.

I also mentioned that the document that was filed on my behalf elicited a firestorm of response from Butler and its high priced lawyers. As I did in my last post, I’m going to be very careful about what I write because I know very well how Butler administrators and their attorneys will come after me if I poke even the smallest hole in their cloak of secrecy. It’s for that reason that I’m not going to say anything at all other than what’s already in public documents easily accessible to anyone who wishes to read them.

The document that my attorney’s filed was a request for a temporary restraining order. The purpose of a temporary restraining order is relatively simple. It’s used to stop one party from doing something that the other party feels is illegal or unfair until a hearing can be held to determine whether the action is actually illegal or unfair. A temporary restraining order has to be presented to a judge who then makes a determination about whether or not a hearing is warranted or whether the disputed action can continue. Because temporary restraining orders are often used in business disputes, and because when a business is kept from undertaking some business it could conceivably suffer a financial loss, the judge issuing the temporary restraining order has to determine how much of a bond the person asking for the order should post. In my case, my attorney requested that Butler not be permitted to have a disciplinary hearing on the date they selected because of the obvious unfairness they had already demonstrated. The judge agreed and determined that since no business interests were involved, no bond needed to be posted.

As you can read for yourself in the inflammatory document submitted by Butler and its attorneys (yes, all of Butler’s legal documents seem to have multiple attorneys signing off on them, perhaps simply to boost profits, perhaps in a misguided attempt to intimidate a student), none of this went over very well. Let me point out two of the most amazing points that Butler made. First, Butler University accused me of filing for the temporary restraining order at the last minute in an effort to subvert them. In reality, I waited that long because I simply didn't want to have to do it, but the continued unfairness of the internal disciplinary process left me with no choice. Second, and even more amazing, they demanded that the judge require me to post a $100,000 bond.

Let me say that again. Butler University demanded that a student post a bond of $100,000 simply for asking that an internal disciplinary proceeding be delayed until the court could determine that the process would be a fair one. Indeed, on the final page of their motion, Butler's attorney writes that the court should order me to "post a bond in the amount of One Hundred Thousand Dollars ($100,000) which represents the minimum damages Butler will incur if it is found that it was enjoined wrongfully."

Since my request for a temporary restraining order meant only that an internal disciplinary hearing would be delayed, Butler obviously was not going to suffer financial losses from any delay. No, the real reason for such an outrageous request was intimidation – a strategy that has been fully in keeping with every action the Butler administration has taken in this case. They hoped that all of those zeros would scare me into backing down. I’m pleased to say that, this time, Butler and its lawyers failed to intimidate me. My lawyer, on my behalf, filed a response that made it clear that we would fight for my rights.

I’d like to make two additional points. First, as is the case with every attorney/client relationship, I consulted regularly with my lawyer and no actions were taken or petitions filed without my approval. For it to be any other way would violate the basic ethics of the legal profession. I raise this point because Butler’s president likes to say that his lawyer consistently acted without his knowledge. Second, I never said that I was unwilling to participate in a campus disciplinary hearing. Indeed, the petition filed in court said that I was willing to participate if a fair process could be guaranteed. After all, I had absolutely nothing to fear from a fair process since I did not act inappropriately. On the other hand, however, I had everything to fear from a process that included the president and all of his minions declaring my guilt to all who would listen before the process began.

In part three of this post, I’ll share with you, to the extent that I can given Butler’s demand for secrecy, the outcome of all of this legal maneuvering and let you draw your own conclusions about the situation.

Let me end with an acknowledgment that I’ve made often over the past months: none of this could have been possible without your support. Thank you.

Secrecy and Discipline: The Butler Way – Part 1

2010-01-28T20:12:00.002-05:00

I’m going to tread very carefully in this post because I don’t want to fall afoul of Butler’s secrecy rules – even as I find those rules to be terribly offensive. Butler regularly does everything it can to cover things it doesn’t like in a cloak of secrecy. It often claims that the secrecy is to protect all parties, but, as I’ll explain, that’s simply untrue and a complete misunderstanding of what confidentiality is all about. In my case, Butler had decreed that I was not permitted to say anything about any disciplinary hearings. They, however, had no compunction about sharing lots of information about their plans for those hearings. Remember, the president announced them publicly on more than one occasion and he proclaimed my guilt on numerous occasions. The university’s public relations department wrote to any and all who contacted them and proclaimed my guilt as well. But I was not permitted to utter a word about the process. And as those of you who regularly read this blog know, I was very circumspect in what I said.

However, that doesn’t mean that the process was likely to be a fair one. And it doesn’t mean that I, or any student, have to be subjected to an unfair process. It is possible to fight back – and win. As I’ve been saying from the beginning of this blog, those of us who feel we’ve been wronged have an obligation to fight for our rights. And as the support I’ve received since the beginning of this blog has shown, when you stand up for your rights, others are likely to be supportive. Movements are built in that fashion and meaningful change can occur.

In my specific case, rather than breaking the code of silence the Butler administration demands on it subjects, I’m simply going to share public documents with you – and I’ll let those documents speak for themselves.

On the advice of my attorney, after repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempting to resolve the situation internally, we looked to the Marion Superior/Circuit Court for help. You can read the petition that was filed on my behalf on 13 November here. I hope, after reading it, you’ll agree with me and the judge who granted the motion requested, that something was very much amiss on the Butler campus.

In part two of this post, I’ll tell you about the firestorm the judge’s ruling created.

But, for a minute, let me return to the issue of secrecy. Butler administrators seem unable to recognize the difference between secrecy and confidentiality. When an action is taken that concerns an individual (in an academic setting this might relate to the grade of a student, a disciplinary action, a faculty personnel action, or something else in that vein) confidentiality means that the institution cannot talk about the issue in a public fashion. But, and this is absolutely critical, the person who is the subject of the action has every right to explain what has happened. Rules of confidentiality go one step further, though. Even if the subject were to discuss the situation, the institution still has no right to discuss it. Yes, this can be very one-sided but we’re talking about the power of an institution versus the (lack of) power of an individual.

Butler administrators refuse to acknowledge what administrators on every other college campus understand. In fact, they have made it clear that they have a completely different set of rules. For example, they were irate when Andrea Gullickson told her faculty about her departure as chair of the School of Music; they claimed that she violated confidentiality and, in response, they claimed the right to ignore confidentiality. They went on to say things about her that were absolutely untrue – and if true should have remained confidential. Additionally, at the open forum on free speech early last semester the provost made the amazing claim that due to rules of confidentiality there are times she can’t tell the whole story about a situation and therefore it is acceptable for her to simply say that you would agree with me if you knew what I know. This sort of slander by omission would be abhorrent in any context, but for an academic administrator to say such things while proclaiming confidentiality is beyond belief. And this is exactly what was done to me, to my step-mother Andrea Gullickson and to my father, Michael Zimmerman.

Let me end the main part of today’s post with two pertinent quotations. British magistrate Sir John Chadwick famously pronounced “Secrecy is the badge of fraud,” while Lord Acton noted that “'Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.” As I’ve said throughout, Butler administrators have a good deal to learn from history.

Finally, on an unrelated note, I’m pleased to mention that Amanda Congdon’s Sometimes Daily piece on Butler’s censoring of The TruBU was selected as one of her best pieces of the year. You can watch it here.

Getting Out

2010-01-24T13:03:00.003-05:00

Today’s post is going to be about me – partly because lots of you have asked and partly because I’m just really pleased to be able to write what I’m going to say. In the coming days I’ll explain, as much as I’m able, how today’s news came to be. But for now, I’ll just present the news.

When I went off to college a few years back, one of my major goals was to graduate and to go on to law school. Over the past year, the Butler administration seemed to be attempting to do everything they could to keep me from realizing that goal. Because many law school applications ask about on-campus disciplinary actions, and because many law school admissions counselors made it clear that if an applicant indicated that such disciplinary actions had been taken against an applicant, admission was made very much more difficult, I was particularly upset about Butler’s desire to trump up charges against me. I was confident that I had done nothing wrong – and lots of national and international groups were confident that I had done nothing wrong. After all, all I had done was to express my opinions and to share the opinions that faculty in the School of Music quietly shared with me because they were too frightened of administrative retaliation to make their voices heard in public. But it became very clear at Butler that expressing a viewpoint that is unpopular with the Butler regime comes with very high costs.

If I were to have a good chance of being accepted to a law school that I wanted to attend, I had no choice but to fight the outrageous disciplinary charges that were leveled against me once Butler realized that their attempt to sue me was generating far too much negative publicity.

Well, just before leaving for Peru to visit my brother in December, Butler and I reached an agreement. While I can't tell you what that agreement is, I can say that I am very comfortable with my law school applications.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to say that just a week after my application was completed at one of my top choice schools, while I was in Cusco, Peru, I received an e-mail informing me that I had been admitted to their law school.

As I said, I’ll explain a bit about the legal struggle to get to this point soon, but for now, I simply want to thank all of you who have stood by me and who have consistently asked Butler administrators to take responsibility for their disgraceful actions. I’m confident that I would not be in this position without the amazing support so many around the country, indeed, around the world, have shown.

Back, Again

2010-01-15T16:29:00.002-05:00

I’m back! And the funny thing is, I didn’t plan to be away for this long. Immediately after my last final in December, I left the country to visit my brother in Peru. I had planned to post occasionally from there but while I was in some truly amazing places, from the Amazon rainforest to Macchu Picchu, I was mostly without reliable internet connections and thus I couldn’t write until I got back. I have a fair bit to say and, over the coming weeks, I’ll share a good deal with you.

For now, however, let me simply wish all of you a happy and healthy new year and let me close with a couple of interesting things I noted in the new passports issued by the United States government. Each of the visa pages has a quotation at the top. Two struck me in light of the events engaged in last year by the Butler administration.

The first, by John F. Kennedy, reads as follows: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

The second, by Anna Julia Cooper, reads as follows: “The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class – it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.”

Those in charge of Butler University have acted this past year in a fashion diametrically opposed to these simple but important statements. They seem to believe that the only thing that is worth protecting is their own self image. They sacrificed freedom of speech, the very cornerstone of liberty and freedom, when they heard sentiments they didn’t like. They acted as if freedom was a birthright only to those in power rather than “the very birthright of humanity.” As I’ve said before, and as so many others around the country have echoed, they should be ashamed of themselves.

There is another quotation in the new passports that I also like. Theodore Roosevelt is quoted as saying, “This is a new nation, based on a mighty continent, of boundless possibilities.” In the Butler context, and at the onset of a new year, I want very much to see this as a prophetic statement – one which praises the strengths and talents of the faculty and students of the university while looking to a time in the not-too-distant future when the “mighty” university is made “new” by having a different, more thoughtful and far more caring administration at the helm.

Again, I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season.

presidential Advice

2009-12-15T00:45:00.003-05:00

Ok, while Butler’s president hasn’t admitted it publicly, I have to believe that he’s regretted bringing up the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech as part of his explanation for why he filed the world’s first-ever lawsuit in which a university sued over on-line speech. After all, how could he not be terribly embarrassed to have his ill-considered remarks repeated so widely?

A Virginia resident with ties to Virginia Tech made the case as well as it could be made when he wrote to the chair of Butler’s Board of Trustees “You may think it a stretch to link Jess Zimmerman’s blog posts to the impassioned essays of our Founding Fathers, but Dr. Fong’s linking of Jess’s remarks to the shootings at Virginia Tech is far greater hyperbole. As a resident of the Virginia Tech shooter’s home town and one with two nephews who recently graduated from that excellent institution, I must protest that those ill-considered remarks trivialize the tragedy of that mass murder in a way that is deeply offensive.”

But what I just realized is that Butler’s president has a tie to Virginia Tech that makes his comments even more reprehensible than I first thought. Soon after the shootings, The Chronicle of Higher Education invited a number of people to address the following question: “If you were giving the commencement address at Virginia Tech this year, what is the core of the message you would like to leave with the graduates?”

Very likely because Butler had suffered through a campus shooting of its own, Butler’s president was one of those The Chronicle approached. His message was a simple but important one: both as individual students and collectively as an institution, Virginia Tech was not alone. He wrote, quite movingly, “In the depths of misery, there will be cords of compassion to draw you back to others.”

He also offered some advice about fear to those who had just experienced the unimaginable. After noting that “Life can be dangerous, full of risk,” he went on and urged them to attempt to move beyond the fear that has to be inherent in such situations: “to respond to life with fear is to diminish yourself.”

When it became clear that he was going to have to explain why he authorized the university’s attorneys to file the lawsuit against “John Doe,” he immediately retreated to fear – and he immediately diminished himself. He told the faculty on October 13^th that the provost “was afraid, for her own safety, for her husband, for her house and property.”

Of course, no one who read what I had written believed a word of what he had to say. And even those who wanted to believe him couldn’t help but repeatedly question why the university didn’t call the police to deal with the threat they perceived rather than file a secret lawsuit.

But by invoking fear as a rationalization, as so many others have said, he trivialized the truly frightful experiences of others and he failed to take the good advice he offered to students at Virginia Tech.

It seems peculiar that the president doesn’t pay any attention when he makes very good sense, but he expects the rest of us to listen when he makes no sense at all.

"What We Must, At All Costs, Preserve In The Academy"

2009-12-13T00:28:00.003-05:00

Consider, if you will, the following statement, spoken years ago by a Butler administrator:

“I believe teaching our students to negotiate issues of ethics and citizenship must be part and parcel of a Butler education. In part it is a matter of doing what the academy has always done: entertaining diverse viewpoints and perspectives, and modeling how a community can engage in civil dialogue. The ideal of the academy is to be able to represent fairly the viewpoint of those with whom one most disagrees. But dialogue, however necessary, is not sufficient. The unending conversation is what we must, at all costs, preserve in the academy….”

I particularly like the final part, “The unending conversation is what we must, at all costs, preserve in the academy…”

Imagine, if you can, how different the past year would have been for me, for Butler, for the present administration, if those words had been heeded. The True BU was raising what I and what frightened faculty members thought were very real concerns. Those concerns were being aired in an anonymous blog because faculty felt that their voices had not been heard – they met privately with the dean, they met privately with the provost, they met privately with the president to no avail. They were repeatedly told one thing but contrary actions ensued. They were frustrated and, as they’ve said, they refused to speak publicly because they were afraid of retaliation. So they let The True BU speak for them. The same dean, provost and president who said one thing but did another did not like reading about those inconsistencies. Those same administrators did not like emails and memos pointing out those inconsistencies being shared publicly so others could draw their own conclusions about their actions.

“The ideal of the academy is to be able to represent fairly the viewpoint of those with whom one most disagrees,” the Butler administrator wrote years ago. How better to represent those views fairly than by presenting the actual words written?

“The unending conversation is what we must, at all costs, preserve in the academy…” A year ago, the Butler administration completely ignored those words and ended the conversation, they stilled the sound of dissent, they silenced my voice. And they did it because they didn’t like what I was saying. But then as now they’ve ignored the fact that those closest to the events I was describing, the faculty in the School of Music, have said that what I was writing was an accurate portrayal of events and an appropriate depiction of their thoughts. For these administrators, however, an unpleasant truth was enough to demand a halt to the conversation. Ironically, they thought that the cost of such silence would be small – but as is so often the case with censorship, the message ultimately got out and the cost was far higher than they ever imagined.

Rather than being willing to pay a high cost to preserve freedom of speech in the academy, this administration did exactly the opposite – they paid a high cost and have become infamous for attempting to silence alternative views.

Why would they go down a path so diametrically opposed to the advice given by the Butler administrator I quoted above? I can’t answer that question but perhaps Butler’s current president can. He is, after all, the one whose policy careened so recklessly off course – and he is the one who, in his inaugural speech on February 9, 2002, spoke the words reproduced above.

Another Newspaper Weighs In

2009-12-12T00:12:00.000-05:00

Although a very strong opinion piece was written about The True BU case in the Whitworthian at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington a bit back, I haven’t had time to mention it here. Like virtually all of the other pieces that have been written, this one too makes two points clearly: Butler’s actions have implications far beyond the Butler campus and The True BU was providing useful information. Here, in part, is what columnist Jacquelyn Wheeler had to say. The full piece is linked on the right so you can read it all if you want.

“Censorship can be a scary thing, especially when those being censored are trying to open doors for discussion and transparency. Jess Zimmerman, a student at Butler University started an anonymous blog titled the “TrueBU Blog” to create a forum of discussion for people to anonymously express what is really happening at Butler University.”

“He was careful to frame his work as an opinion, but the amount of digging that was done to find real concrete evidence for his case against the administration’s decision to fire Dr. Gullickson was impressive. It’s no wonder the university found his case threatening. His blog was shut down and the school sued him for it.”

“At this point, what Butler has done is give Zimmerman much more critical material for his new blog titled “I am ‘John Doe’.” This blog documents the legal happenings in his case and presents a whole new realm of harsher criticisms against the university by staff, clergy and other important community members.”

“[I]t ought to make us thankful for the competency and integrity of our administration. At the same time, though, we too ought to be watchful and hold Whitworth accountable to the high standards it professes.”

“Zimmerman’s blog was something he was, and still is, willing to stand by. It was meant to hold the university accountable, and it has. What could have been forgotten about in a very short period of time has provoked Butler University to actions that open the doors for even more criticism, analysis and change.”

Although I’ve said this before, let me repeat it now. I simply can’t understand why students from around the country, free speech experts from around the world, and people from all walks of life who learn about this situation have come to a conclusion so much at odds with that of Butler’s administration. From the beginning, I’ve never thought that there was anything complex about this case – but then Butler administrators opted to make a federal case out of it – well, literally a Marion County Superior/Circuit case.

I wonder why all of these people can see so clearly what the Butler administration has been so blind to.

Pride and Prejudice

2009-12-10T23:12:00.001-05:00

Hubris is an interesting concept. From the Greeks to the present day, stories abound which focus on characters whose downfalls are associated with large doses of hubris. Consider the common definitions of hubris (overweening pride, arrogance, an excess of ambition) and its most common synonyms (arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, high-handedness, lordliness, self-importance, vanity) and you quickly get the idea that hubris is an extreme character flaw.

The Philosophy Dictionary provides a bit more insight: “The general connotation of the pride that goes before a fall is a later and partially Christian reinterpretation of the classical concept. In Aristotle (Rhetoric 1378b 23-30) hubris is gratuitous insolence: the deliberate infliction of shame and dishonor on someone else, not by way of revenge, but in the mistaken belief that one thereby shows oneself superior. Tragedy is not therefore the punishment of hubris, since tragedy concerns unjust suffering, whereas hubris deprives the agent of sympathy from the outset.”

What set me off on this tack was an editorial and a news story published recently in the Tufts Daily. While neither uses the term, in reading both, that’s what immediately popped into my head. The headline of the editorial, “Guarding a reputation, but sacrificing principles,” led me there first.

I encourage you to read both pieces in their entirety but let me draw your attention to a couple of highlights to show you how I came to hubris.

“The university wrongly manipulated the U.S. legal system for its own personal benefit. Our laws should not be used as a means of blackmail; their purpose is to keep law and order. Suing Zimmerman was a way for the university to strong-arm him into giving up his identity and submitting himself to university punishment — a wrongful and overly suppressive step in and of itself.”

“Not only did Butler overstep in restraining the free speech of one of its students; it abused the judicial system and tarnished its own reputation in the process.”

Reading these two pieces made me think back to the language the university attorney, supposedly writing on behalf of the university president, used all summer long. He repeatedly mentioned Butler “having to teach me a lesson.” Although the public discourse, once the Butler community and the world beyond the Butler bubble found the institution’s actions to be reprehensible, quickly shifted to rhetoric designed to lure people into believing that Butler’s actions were crafted to protect the physical safety and welfare of the community from someone so deranged that he would criticize administrative actions, that’s not where this all started.

No, the last sentence from the Philosophy Dictionary’s definition of hubris, “the deliberate infliction of shame and dishonor on someone else, not by way of revenge, but in the mistaken belief that one thereby shows oneself superior,” brings all of this together for me. Certainly the institution was attempting to cast “shame and dishonor” on me by claiming I used racial and sexual epithets when I didn’t, or by preposterously implying that my criticisms should be viewed as physical threats. And many others have pointed out that the Butler administration is populated with incredibly insecure administrators who believe that tearing others down “shows oneself superior.”

In reading about the topic, I’ve come to realize that unbridled hubris so clouds vision that what others can plainly see is masked in a mist of self righteousness. This insight has been of great value to me because it helps me understand why the Butler administration’s actions have been so consistently in opposition to those expressed by so many people, newspapers and organizations around the world. Please understand that I’m not saying that I’m right and Butler is wrong. Rather, because my position has been supported so widely, across the full political spectrum, it previously made no sense to me that Butler felt compelled to act in a way that was viewed as so extreme by so many. I now understand where hubris can take someone.

Beyond the damage this has done to me, what’s most sad about unbridled hubris in leaders is that the institutions they’re responsible for also suffer. As the Tufts editorial, like a raft of others before it, demonstrates, in their attempt to demonstrate their superiority, Butler administrators have sacrificed the reputation of the very institution they had a responsibility to protect.

And, saddest of all, to this very moment, there’s no evidence that they’ve even noticed.

Thoughts on Censorship

2009-12-09T22:22:00.002-05:00

I’ve gotten a little worried that over the last two months readers of I am “John Doe” may have gotten caught up in the details of some of the ridiculous and untrue things Butler has said about me and lost sight of the bigger issue. The real issue is that in the original True BU blog I was expressing my opinions (and those of faculty in the School of Music who were too fearful of administrative retaliation to express them themselves) and the Butler administration didn’t like what I had to say. The threatened me for writing what I wrote. They intimidated me for what I wrote. And, ultimately, for about nine months at least, they silenced me. In simple terms, their threats and intimidation were acts of censorship.

So, I did an internet search to see what others had to say about censorship. Rather than comment on each quotation, I want to leave them with you as a package. Read them and think about what the Butler administration has done. Read them and think about the world the Butler administration has attempted to create. And, perhaps most importantly, read them and think about the world you will live in if you sit by and do nothing to stop actions of this sort, in the Butler case or in other cases where people in power attempt to silence those who disagree with them.

(I do want to add a small disclaimer. Although all of the following quotations were found on the internet, I can’t vouch for their authenticity. Regardless of whether every one was actually spoken or written by the person to which it was attributed, each provides important and interesting insight.)

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. - Potter Stewart

Censorship is the height of vanity. - Martha Graham

I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print. - John Mortimer

The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen. - Tommy Smothers

The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship. – John Paul Stevens

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. - John Stuart Mill

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. - John Stuart Mill

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. - John Stuart Mill

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. - Alfred Whitney Griswold

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. - Sigmund Freud

Every burned book enlightens the world. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The paper burns, but the words fly away. - Akiba ben Joseph

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. - John F. Kennedy

You can cage the singer but not the song. - Harry Belafonte

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. - Voltaire

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken - unspeakable! - fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse - a little tiny mouse! -of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. – Winston Churchill

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. – Noam Chomsky

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. – Benjamin Franklin

And let me end with one that should be near and dear to the heart of Butler’s president, since he is an expert on Oscar Wilde: “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all."

Administrative Moments

2009-12-08T23:43:00.001-05:00

Butler University recently released a fund-raising video titled “Butler’s Proudest Moments of 2009.” Not surprisingly, given the quality of students and faculty at Butler, there were a large number of things to celebrate. I join with my friends and mentors in congratulating those at Butler who accomplished so much this last year.

In the spirit of this video, I offer my “Butler’s Less-Than Proudest Administrative Moments of 2009.” As with everything associated with The True BU situation, Butler has far deeper pockets than I do so I won’t be able to produce a flashy video like they did. Instead, I’m going to have to provide you with a written list of those moments that the Butler administration would likely hope you all forgot. So, please imagine some music as well as administrators and their attorneys ranting and raving, as you read the following.

January 2, 2009: The vice president for student affairs demands a meeting with me on a day the university is officially closed. He brings along a witness and when I say I want one as well, he refuses to allow me that courtesy. He says he is not asking me who was responsible for The True BU but I am later accused of lying to him about this issue.

January 4, 2009: The university attorney Emails the Soodo Nym account to threaten both a civil and a criminal case over The True BU. This threat frightened me into removing The True BU from the internet.

January 8, 2009: The university, over the signature of three attorney’s, files the country’s first ever lawsuit by a university against on-line speech. This occurred four days AFTER I was successfully intimidated into removing The True BU from the web.

January 9 – June 15, 2009: All quiet on the Butler front.

June 16, 2009: In response to a letter from my father asking for a retraction, a clarification or an apology from the provost about outrageously untrue statements she made about him, Butler informs me about the “John Doe” lawsuit and threatens to substitute “John Doe’s” name with my name unless both my father and I sign confidentiality agreements and unless I agree to submit to any punishment Butler deems appropriate for speaking my mind.

June 17 – September 26, 2009: Butler repeatedly threatens to substitute my name for “John Doe’s” name in the lawsuit and continues to demand that my father and I sign confidentiality agreements and that I submit to any punishment they deem appropriate for speaking my mind.

September 27, 2009: Butler stops threatening to replace my name for “John Doe’s” name in the lawsuit, instead promises to do so by the end of the week. They also say they will instigate internal disciplinary procedures immediately.

October 12, 2009: A local Indianapolis television station ran a news story reporting on Butler’s lawsuit against “John Doe.” Because the only people quoted were associated with the Butler administration, it appears obvious that the Butler administration leaked the story to the press.

October 13, 2009: The president tells the faculty senate about the lawsuit indicating that he was compelled to file suit because of the possibility of a Virginia Tech style event taking place. The president sends out a memo to the entire faculty about the lawsuit that was riddled with inaccuracies and that made absurd claims about The True BU.

October 19, 2009: The president sends out a second memo to the entire faculty about me and The True BU that was also riddled with inaccuracies and that made absurd claims about The True BU. Additionally, the president accuses me of bullying the administration and the campus by writing The True BU. The president says he never intended to sue a student and he would not sue a student.

October 20, 2009: At an open forum discussing free speech issues, the provost said that although she was frightened for her safety, Butler was compelled to file a lawsuit against “John Doe” rather than contacting the police for protection, claiming that the police could only be contacted if they could be told who was threatening her.

October 26, 2009: Butler withdraws its lawsuit against “John Doe,” a full seven days after the president said it would be dropped. The president’s wife writes to faculty about The True BU situation enclosing e-mail and documents personally addressed to the president’s office at Butler Univeristy.

October 27, 2009: The president sends out a third memo to the entire faculty about me and The True BU that was riddled with inaccuracies and that made absurd claims about The True BU. He again states that I am guilty of various transgressions and says that I will be punished through Butler’s internal disciplinary process. The president tells a student reporter that he had nothing to do with the promise made by Butler’s attorney on September 27th to replace “John Doe’s” name with my name.

October 29, 2009: The president refuses to act on a letter privately delivered to him by Father Charles Allen from more than 10 faculty members in the School of Music. These faculty members, fearful of administrative retaliation, opted to speak out only if they were guaranteed anonymity and confirmed that what was written in The True BU was the truth and that it accurately reflected the information they provided to Soodo Nym aka John Doe.

October 30, 2009: The chair of Butler’s Board of Trustees sends a statement to the media about The True BU case. In that statement, he opts to “reaffirm Butler’s pledge to provide for the safety and welfare of its students, administration, faculty and staff,” implying that campus safety was somehow at risk.

October – November: The president and his public relations staff regularly reply to concerns raised about my situation with a defamatory letter claiming that I threatened the campus community.

November 12, 2009: The chair of Butler’s Board of Trustees writes to acknowledge receiving a letter from my attorney discussing the internal disciplinary process. The chair ignores the issues of bias raised saying, instead, that he trusts the process and that the president was made aware of my concerns.

November 12, 2009 – the present: I’m sorry to say that I cannot, at this time, discuss this part of the ordeal. I hope to fill you in on it, as much as I can, soon.

There you have it: my list of “Butler’s Less-Than Proudest Administrative Moments of 2009.” The crazy thing is, all of these items involve only my case. I know, and I suspect that many of you know, many other administrative actions taken this past year that are just as reprehensible as these. It is a shame that no one is able or willing to hold Butler administrators accountable for their actions. I hope that my blog sheds some light where none has been and that it encourages others to speak out when they see injustices being committed.

When in Doubt, Sue

2009-12-07T23:30:00.002-05:00

Inside Higher Ed recently ran an interview with Professor Amy Gajda, the author of The Trials of Academe: The New Era of Campus Litigation published in October by Harvard University Press. The book and the interview have much to teach us about Butler’s reaction to The True BU.

Take a look at how the interview opens and see if it sounds familiar: “When in doubt, sue. That philosophy has become an expected part of American society and (to the frustration of many in higher education) academe as well.”

Professor Gajda was asked to comment on the notion that “Many college administrators these days complain that lawyers for their institutions have too much power.” In response, she said, “University counsel have never been busier or more important, but there is a danger in letting lawyers call all the shots. The ‘safest’ course from a litigation standpoint may not be the best for innovation, research, or teaching….College administrators and faculty generally need to be alert to the legal risks, while remaining true to their academic judgment.”

Remember that Butler’s president is on record saying that the university lawyers were operating without his knowledge and not under his control. Actually, though, I don’t think that is what Professor Gajda meant when she said that “lawyers for their institution have too much power.” Frankly, I doubt that she would have ever imagined a situation of the kind Butler’s president wants you to believe. But I have no doubt that the lawyers were complicit in creating Butler’s strategy with respect to intimidating me into shutting down The True BU. And I have no doubt that they play too large a role in the Butler administrative ethos.

Professor Gajda was asked about ways to reduce litigation: “Can you summarize the steps you recommend to colleges to discourage litigation as a means of solving disputes?” Her advice makes good sense. “The most important thing is for colleges to find a way of defusing academic disputes before they harden into a legal complaint. If colleges and universities took greater care to promote communication and a sense of community on campus, there would be fewer lawsuits.”

It seems to me that Butler has a great deal of work to do on this front. What sort of a “sense of community” exists on Butler’s campus when faculty member after faculty member expresses great fear of the administration? How can the administration ignore the problem when music faculty feel they can only come forward anonymously under the protection of a priest to document that what I wrote in The True BU was what they shared with me and that it was accurate? There is one thing that is helping faculty come together and build a shared community: their sense of fear of the Butler administration. Similarly, the Butler administration is all about secrecy. They “classify” more documents than you can imagine. Their two-pronged strategy when dealing with conflict, as has been so well demonstrated throughout my experience, is to demand that the content of all meetings remain secret and to have meetings with as few people at a time as they can get away with so they can tell each group a different “secret.” Amid a climate of fear, this strategy ensures that no one knows what anyone else knows – and thus that administrators are never asked tough questions.

One of the main points of Professor Gajda’s book is that recourse to the court system, while being overused now, came about to correct abuses present on college campuses that occurred when colleges acted as if they were outside of the law. She paints an unsettling picture of how things were: “At one time, colleges were basically unaccountable in the courts. They ignored contracts, trampled speech rights, and dismissed students and faculty on whim or prejudice with basic impunity.” She concludes that thought with the only statements she’s made with which I disagree and which is demonstrably false, at least on one campus in central Indiana: “No one should want to go back to those days.” It is all too obvious that Butler administrators yearn for the good old days when they could act with impunity, when freedom of speech stopped when someone in power didn’t like what was being said.

Professor Gajda does a great service by documenting a very real threat to higher education and the actions of Butler University serve to prove her case definitively.

The president Meets Dick the Butcher

2009-12-06T22:26:00.003-05:00

Most of you probably know that Butler's president has a Ph.D. in English. It's fair, therefore, to suspect that he's familiar with Henry VI, Part 2 by William Shakespeare. Given some of the statements the president has been making lately, he seems to have taken to heart the line offered by Shakespeare's Dick the Butcher, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

This latest turn of events is somewhat surprising since Butler has long been enamored with their lawyers. Remember that Butler brought in their lawyer to meet with my father last December. At that time he was told that they had proof I was “Soodo Nym” and they threatened to sue me if The True BU was not shut down because the president was so angry about the negative publicity he thought The True BU was generating.

Although their power tactic worked and they intimidated me into closing The True BU, I never believed that they would actually sue me for expressing my opinions in a blog – especially when those opinions were the same as those voiced by many faculty members in the School of Music, and especially when I (thought I) was living in a world in which universities simply don’t sue students. But the president was angry enough that he set his lawyer to work, and his lawyer found two colleagues in his firm who also wanted to generate some billable hours, and a lawsuit was crafted. That lawsuit was filed four days AFTER The True BU was removed from the web and it was filed over the signatures of three attorneys.

As I’ve said before, I heard nothing about this lawsuit for six months – not until my father complained to the university about disparaging and absolutely untrue comments made in public by the provost about him. Then the lawyers were trotted out again to threaten me with this same lawsuit. And they threatened and they threatened. They threatened me throughout the months of June, July and August. They threatened me for the first 26 days in September. And then, at 10:05 p.m. on Sunday, September 27^th, in an email, they stopped threatening and made a promise – they promised to substitute my name for that of “John Doe” in the lawsuit within the week. (“…we will proceed to substitute Jess Zimmerman for John Doe in the pending lawsuit. I anticipate that these actions will occur by the end of the week. Please let me know whether you will accept service for Jess Zimmerman.”)

Throughout the summer months of threatening, the university’s main lawyer repeatedly said that he had to check with the president before committing himself to any specific course of action. And that’s how it should be when a lawyer is working for a client.

Which brings me back to the president. How often has he said that he never intended to sue a student? How often has he said that he only filed the original lawsuit to find out who “Soodo Nym” was, something he said he already knew before the suit was filed? Why the threats to sue me if he never intended to sue me?

One implication to be drawn from these statements is that the lawyer was running the show – apparently against the wishes of the president and in such a way that the president was completely ignorant of his actions. I’ll leave the alternative implication for you to discern and simply say that it certainly isn’t flattering to the president.

And then, on October 27^th, exactly a month after I received the promise from the university’s attorney that my name would be added to the lawsuit, I learned from a Collegian reporter that the president explicitly stated that he had nothing to do with the promise. In the face of the national outcry over the outrageous lawsuit, the president decided to cut his losses and, metaphorically at least, kill his attorney. Shakespeare would be proud.

The attorney, however, like the president, doesn’t seem to want to take credit for the promise to put my name on the lawsuit. Take a look at what the attorney wrote to a Butler faculty member: “You accused me in our phone conversation of threatening a student with his/her substitution for John Doe in the lawsuit. I immediately reacted to this by telling you that was untrue….” This amazing disclaimer was preceded by a threat: “I repeat our caution to you that your concerns be voiced responsibly, especially before making such serious accusations against Butler and its attorneys.”

So, according to Butler’s president and to Butler’s primary attorney, no one is responsible for the email promising to substitute my name for “John Doe’s” and even mentioning such a thing makes one susceptible to Butler’s wrath.

These are the people running the show – and these are the people complaining about my blog, a blog since October 14^th I’ve taken credit for writing.

When are these people going to take responsibility for their actions?

Angelica Pickles meets Butler University

2009-12-04T23:58:00.004-05:00

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

That’s the signature line from Love Story, the overly saccharine book by Erich Segal made into an equally tear jerker of a movie. Not everyone seems to agree with the sentiment of the line, however. In an episode of The Simpsons titled "Catch 'Em if You Can,” Lisa shouts, "No it doesn't!" when the line is spoken on the movie they’re all watching.

Similarly, in an ironic turn of events, Ryan O’Neal, one of the two characters in Love Story who actually uttered the line, has something to say about it in the film “What’s Up, Doc?” In that film, when Barbara Streisand’s character says the line, O’Neal’s character immediately responds by saying, “That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."

Saying you’re sorry can accomplish a lot of good things. When someone says that they’re sorry for something, it is often possible for the person hearing the apology to respond in kind – and meaningful relationships can be rebuilt.

The petition created by the Friends of Jess Zimmerman, and available on the right, has asked the Butler administration to say they’re sorry. Explicitly, the petition asks for two very simple apologies:

“an immediate apology for filing the BUTLER UNIVERSITY v. JOHN DOE a/k/a "Soodo Nym" a/k/a thetruebu@gmail.com lawuit;” and

“an immediate apology for the accusations made against Jess Zimmerman.”

The petition has now been signed by more than 900 people from all around the globe. (If you are so inclined, and if you haven’t already added your signature to the petition, please think about doing so.) These people are all looking for the Butler administration to step forward and acknowledge that the actions taken are worthy of an apology, and then to issue one.

It seems, however, that Butler has decided to model its behavior on a different popular culture icon. Angelica Pickles, a character from Rugrats, stated, “BEING BAD means never having to say you're sorry."

That demonstrates the high quality leadership of a major American university!

Lenin v. Roosevelt

2009-12-03T23:33:00.002-05:00

Tonight, I want to compare the perspective of Vladimir Lenin to that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But first I need to set the stage.

For well over a month now, various Butler offices, from that of the president through those of various vice presidents to many in the public relations office, have been saying fairly incredible things about me and The True BU. Regularly, they say that the blog threatened the safety of the campus. They say that the blog intimidated senior administrators on campus. They have regularly talked negatively about an email they admit they have no evidence I wrote at the same time they talk of The True BU in an attempt to conflate the authorship of the two. They note that “Butler does not tolerate racial and sexual epithets in the name of free exchange of ideas,” while discussing The True BU, but never once have they pointed to any such slurs.

From what I’ve seen on campus, and frankly from what I’ve seen through many contacts off campus, most people have not actually read what I’ve written in The True BU. Many people, having heard or read the Butler message, say that what I’ve done was wrong. They say it isn’t right to threaten people or to intimidate people or to use racial and sexual slurs. Who could argue with that? Certainly not me. But I didn’t actually do any of those things – despite the message repeated loudly and often by Butler to the contrary.

Which brings me to Vladimir Lenin – or to a quotation that has regularly been attributed to him. (I have been unable to track down the actual source of the quotation so, despite the frequency with which the attribution has been made, I don’t actually know if he said it or not.) “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

The Butler administration seems to have wholeheartedly endorsed that sentiment. They present no evidence, but they keep repeating their statements. This is as cynical a way to influence public opinion as possible.

While I can’t stop their repetitions, I can embrace an alternative and far less cynical philosophy – one articulated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a radio address on October 26, 1939: “Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

I know what the truth about The True BU is and no amount of repetition will change the truth into something else. I am also very pleased by the fact that when people actually have taken the time to read what I’ve written, they too have overwhelmingly come to the same conclusion as I have.

You’d think that those in charge of an institution of higher education would come down on Roosevelt’s side of the divide – or at least you’d hope that they would. After all, education is about knowledge, about reducing ignorance. Or, as Anatole France has said (in yet another quotation that I can’t verify beyond pointing to the fact that “everyone” says it’s real): “An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.” Unfortunately, some at Butler seem to want you to confuse the two.

A "Measly" Student Blog

2009-12-02T23:43:00.003-05:00

Since I’ve been gone, a few more newspapers from around the country have picked up this troubling story. I’ve linked to them on the right. Two of these new pieces comes from Minnesota State’s Reporter, which ran both a news story about this situation and an editorial criticizing the Butler administration’s actions with respect to The True BU. In their news story, the Reporter quotes a professor who teaches Mass Communications Law. Here’s that part of the story.

“Ellen Mrja, an associate professor in the mass communications department at Minnesota State, does not agree with Butler's actions in the matter.

"’This was over-reaction on the part of the administrators that makes them look weak, not strong,’ Mrja said. Mrja teaches a class in Mass Communications Law. ‘You can not stop someone from speaking their truth.’"

Unfortunately, I feel that I must disagree with Professor Mrja just a drop. In fact, Butler did stop me “from speaking the truth,” at least for a while. After being threatened and intimidated by Butler’s attorneys I closed The True BU and removed it from the internet. But, from the bigger perspective, the professor is absolutely correct. Because of Butler’s heavy handed administrative actions, many, many more people have now read The True BU than had ever before and people all over the world are now upset about how Butler deals with free speech.

As Barry Lynn, Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and host of the nationally syndicated talk show Culture Shocks, said on the air with me, “how many people outside of the Butler community even saw this blog? But for Butler University’s filing of a lawsuit, this would have been a footnote to history, the history of a university many people know nothing about.”

Let me go back to the editorial at Minnesota State University since it does such a good job of explaining why Butler’s actions are important – and dangerous. Here are parts of the long editorial:

“The lawsuit against Jess Zimmerman of Butler University could happen anywhere. Clearly an attempt to censor online speech, it could have also impact students' rights to speak freely everywhere.”

“The blog barely got any hits initially; it wasn't until Butler administrators spoke against it that more people were popping on the site to check out the controversy. So the school actually drew more attention to the criticism by attacking it.”

“They are trying to silence this blogger's voice and the message it sends seriously threatens free speech. Zimmerman could face major repercussions on-campus for speaking his mind, a problematic blow to the freedoms U.S. citizens have been granted.”

“The student was simply being critical of the ethics and morality of a situation. His opinion didn't defame the university; it called out university officials on alleged wrongdoing, a shining example of the importance and need for the First Amendment.”

“Butler's efforts to chill free speech online - the communication hub of the world - are the real problems facing their university.”

“It seems that while Butler attempted to contain its opposition using Zimmerman as an example, it tampered its image on a national level, much more damage than a measly student blog could create.”

Even though they characterize The True BU as “a measly student blog,” I couldn’t agree more.

I find it fascinating that students and faculty members from around the country have consistently come to a conclusion so much at odds with the extreme position the Butler administration has taken. You’d think that that should give Butler’s administration something to think about.

I'm Back

2009-12-01T23:13:00.001-05:00

I apologize for taking such a long break. I just needed a little bit away from everything and, luckily, I got it over the last week. While I did spend my time off of campus playing golf and eating turkey, I certainly did not forget about what the Butler administration is trying to do. And I promise, especially to those of you who Emailed me over the last two weeks, that I will not forget and that I will continue to fight. Together, we can make a difference.

I hope that you, if you haven’t already, will sign the petition and continue to spread this story to your friends and colleagues. As I’ve said, and as organizations like Reporters Without Borders have said, what Butler’s administration is doing can set a dangerous and frightening precedent in higher education.

I hope my break didn’t alienate too many of you!

A Different President, a Different Precedent

2009-11-19T23:52:00.003-05:00

Perhaps we can find a way to encourage President Barak Obama to pay a visit to the Butler campus so he can repeat some of the things he said in China on Monday. Unfortunately, I suspect he might be unwilling to come to Indianapolis thinking that his welcome from Butler’s leaders might well be far icier than the one he received from Chinese leaders in Shanghai.

The BBC, in a story with the two-tiered headline of “Obama presses China over rights: US President Barack Obama has told China that individual rights and freedoms should be available to all,” quoted Obama as saying, “certain freedoms were universal - and not just limited to Americans.”

The story went on to say, “’We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation, but we also don't believe that the principles we stand for are unique to our nation,’ he said.

"’These freedoms of expression and worship, of access to information and political participation - we believe are universal rights.’"

The article then noted that “Media outlets and the internet are heavily censored, and those who speak out against the government are often imprisoned.

“Mr Obama added: ‘They should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities, whether they are in the United States, China or any nation.’

“After his main speech, he addressed the issue again in a question and answer session with Chinese students - many of whom spoke English.

“Mr Obama said freedom of information - including open access to the internet - was important.

"’That makes our democracy stronger because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear - it forces me to examine what I'm doing,’ he said.

“He said the internet was a powerful tool to mobilise people and had helped him win the presidency last year.”

So, President Obama is telling leaders that they shouldn’t be using the legal system to shut down internet speech that they don’t want to hear. In fact, he’s arguing that hearing such criticisms improves the democratic process and “forces me to examine what I’m doing.”

If only members of the Butler administration could hear, understand and appreciate what President Obama had to say. Obviously, Butler has chosen a completely different path, a path that many have found objectionable. It is very hard to feel comfortable with the company that Butler is deciding to keep on this issue.

Guest Blogger: Anti-SLAPP.org

2009-11-18T23:12:00.004-05:00

Today, I bring you a guest blogger. Samantha Brown is the legislative director of the Federal Anti-SLAPP Project which is an organization based in Washington DC that works to end SLAPP lawsuits and promote free speech. Ms. Brown wrote a piece about this case for their blog a few weeks ago titled, "Butler University's Lawsuit Textbook CyberSLAPP." Here, she explains a little bit about SLAPP suits and the dangerous precedent that Butler's actions are setting. I encourage you to check out the links that she provides and to comment on what she has to say.

Teaching Moments from BU’s Suit Against Jess Zimmerman

by Samantha Brown

Federal Anti-SLAPP Project

Institutions of higher learning remain our country's bastions of cutting-edge thought and expression, and a student’s entry to college is marked by an expectation that they will, perhaps for the first time, think critically about the world around them, while taking steps toward intellectual and social independence. With some exceptions, even dissident student voices should be welcomed and encouraged, as a rite of passage, and as an important step in the path toward adulthood and responsible citizenship.

Butler University seems to have forgotten about this important role in the development of their students. When one of its own operated an anonymous blog featuring comments critical of some University faculty, the University opted not to engage with the blogger, respond to his concerns, or even take them in stride as participation in university life that should be encouraged.

Instead, Butler threatened the blogger with a lawsuit if the blog wasn’t taken down. The blogger, confronted with the vast resources of a university, complied, removing the blog and all posts.

Butler sued anyway.

Several months into the litigation, Butler learned the identity of the anonymous blogger – a 20-year-old sophomore named Jess Zimmerman. Butler offered Zimmerman the chance to drop the lawsuit if he would agree to an internal university sanctioning process. Zimmerman declined that offer, and Butler pressed ahead for several more months, despite calls from faculty to stop the lawsuit, and despite some scholarly and media opinion finding the lawsuit groundless and very unlikely to win.

Unfortunately, Zimmerman is not the first to face a groundless lawsuit because he spoke out about an issue important to his community. Such lawsuits are so common that they have earned a descriptive acronym: Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPPs. SLAPPs are meritless lawsuits brought against a person or organization for urging a government result or speaking out on an issue of public interest.

Butler's lawsuit against Zimmerman has characteristics of a CyberSLAPP, a particular type of SLAPP, wherein a defendant brings an often completely frivolous or groundless lawsuit against an anonymous speaker, in order to have the court force the speaker to reveal his or her identity. Once a SLAPPer learns the identity of an anonymous speaker, it can drop the meritless lawsuit and proceed with other methods of harassment or retaliation. Employers who suspect that employees may be leaking unfavorable information may use this tactic to discover the identity of an online poster, for example. And Butler seems to have used this model in seeking Zimmerman's identity.

The threat of a lawsuit alone often causes citizens to censor themselves, as when Zimmerman first took down his blog in the face of Butler’s litigation threat. And once someone is sued, even a mertiless lawsuit can take years and thousands of dollars to defend against. Judge J. Nicolas Colabella, of the New York Supreme Court, has said of SLAPPs that, “Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment freedoms can scarcely be imagined.”

But while Zimmerman is not alone in being sued for exercising his first amendment rights, his continued exercise of those rights may put him in the minority of SLAPP victims. Perhaps because his first attempt to avoid trouble by taking down the blog was unsuccessful, or perhaps because he is backed by well-known First Amendment advocates such as FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) and Reporters Without Borders, or perhaps on principle alone, Zimmerman has remained steadfast. He now operates this blog to chronicle the on-going dispute with the university.

State legislatures, judges, practitioners and academics have recognized and documented the disturbing use of SLAPPs as a scare tactic by those who wish to stifle participation in government or expression about matters of public interest. Twenty eight states have anti-SLAPP protections that vary widely in scope and level of protection, and the extent to which the state laws apply in federal courts is unclear. Existing federal doctrine and Rules of Civil Procedure provide only partial protection against SLAPPs in federal court. The current lack of uniformity in SLAPP protection encourages SLAPP plaintiffs to shop for a friendly court, and results in disparate first amendment protections depending on where the suit is filed.

To provide uniform, comprehensive protection for first amendment rights, the Federal Anti-SLAPP Project (FASP) has written and is working to secure federal anti-SLAPP legislation. The proposed Citizen Participation Act (CPA), which Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) plans to introduce this year, provides the tools to combat SLAPPs: a substantive right of immunity for petition activity, a uniform method of identifying, dismissing and remedying SLAPPs in federal courts, and a procedure to protect SLAPP defendants who are SLAPPed in state court. The CPA would further provide special protections for anonymous speech, by requiring those who seek an anonymous speaker’s identity in a CyberSLAPP to prove that their case has minimum merit before being allowed to do so.

Civics 101 teaches that free expression is the foundation of our democracy and is essential to public health, community well-being, and economic prosperity. Rather than stress the importance of civic engagement, however, Butler University opted in this instance to punish it, and sought to silence it with the egregious use of the courts as a gag.

For more information about the Federal Anti-SLAPP Project, please see our website or contact Samantha Brown at (sb)[at](anti-slapp[dot]org).

Lessons to be Learned

2009-11-17T22:35:00.002-05:00

With so much of my attention focused on the actions the Butler administration keeps directing toward me, at times I almost forget the fact that I’m a student. Then I read something for a class that really helped me to remember what college is supposed to be about. I want to make it clear from the beginning that I'm not comparing myself to Dr. King nor am I comparing my situation to the struggle that characterized much of the 20th century: I simply aim to point out that many of his teachings are still very applicable, in a variety of places and situations, today.

Recently, I had the opportunity to read some of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s writings and they really moved me. Like so many great writers and impressive leaders, Dr. King was able to craft arguments that went far beyond the specific instance he was writing about. One of those pieces was his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” written on April 16, 1963. He wrote this open letter after being arrested for participating in a protest against racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama.

He said, in part, “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

He went on to say, “You may well ask: ‘Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?’ You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”

And he said, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

The racial justice he was fighting for, and for which so many are still fighting, is absolutely essential if we are to live in a fair and equitable society. His words are so incredibly powerful because they teach us about all sorts of injustice – and how to fight those injustices. Even more importantly, his words explain why we must fight against injustice when we see it.

President Bill Clinton quoted Dr. King on March 5, 2000 when he was in Selma, Alabama commemorating the 35th anniversary of the 1965 voting rights march. President Clinton chose to quote words Dr. King wrote in 1962, “It is history's wry paradox that when Negroes win their struggle to be free, those who have held them down will themselves be free for the first time."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been gone for over 40 years but his words still have much to teach us about injustice and the remarkable benefits that occur for all when injustice is finally overcome.

I wish that many in our community, and beyond, could learn the lessons that Dr. King was preaching.

Wouldn't it be nice?

2009-11-16T22:47:00.002-05:00

When Butler University became, according to The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the first institution of higher education to file a lawsuit for online speech, it didn’t have to be that way. In fact, just up I-65, at Purdue, a professor wrote an unpopular blog that angered a large part of the campus. Instead of acting rashly, the administration at Purdue recognized that the words of this professor, though unpopular, constituted free speech. Like the ACLU has said, “The best way to counter obnoxious speech is with more speech. Persuasion, not coercion, is the solution.” Indeed, free speech may not always be popular speech, but it’s the free part, not the popularity part, that we need to defend.

Consider the difference between the press that Butler has been getting for its free speech stance and the press that Purdue has been receiving for its. I don’t think I need to point out again what people have been saying about Butler: Just look at my last few posts and any of the links on the right. As for Purdue, the Indianapolis Star wrote an editorial this past Friday titled, “A Messy Test of Free Speech” where the editorial board praises Purdue’s actions.

The Star writes:

“One of the beauties of the First Amendment is that it protects the right of any citizen to freely express an opinion, even an unpopular opinion. It also protects the right of critics to offer counter arguments. And so, in an often messy but crucial process, public debate about wide-ranging issues -- including politics, religion and sex -- advances.”

And later:

“Chapman's opinions might not fit within the often narrow range of viewpoints deemed acceptable on many college campuses, but so far all that he has done is present an argument. It may be an offensive argument to many, but the professor didn't come close to advocating violence against anyone or to resorting to slurs to demean his opponents in the Oct. 27 blog post that stirred the controversy.”

The editorial concludes:

“The university has taken the right stand on the matter, pointing to the First Amendment and its powerful protections. They're protections all Americans should embrace, even when the arguments get messy.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if these kinds of things could be written about the Butler administration?

A Chorus, Part Two

2009-11-15T21:39:00.005-05:00

As I said yesterday, I want to share some more of the editorial comments that have appeared in college and university newspapers around the country. I’m very pleased that all of these places have recognized the importance of standing up for free speech whenever and wherever it is attacked. Butler happens to be the site of this attack, and I happen to be the recipient of that attack, but as so many editors from around the country recognize, it could happen elsewhere if people don’t protest.

Here’s a sampling of what’s been written:

From The Daily Texan at the University of Texas Austin (11/04/09): The piece, written by a member of the paper’s editorial board and entitled “Viewpoint: Gagging the Bloggers,” says “The school had no case to fall back on, no proof of libel or damage that Zimmerman’s comments may have caused. Instead, officials resorted to a questionable standard.” The column goes on to say, “Despite a win on the legal side, Zimmerman now has to face a much more questionable and judicially suspect form of trial — campus disciplinary proceedings.” The column concludes very powerfully by arguing:

While free speech and press are not guaranteed on private campuses, we applaud Zimmerman’s use of off-campus press to spread news of the administration’s tyrannical response to critical speech — likely curbing similar oppression of speech at other private institutions.

Officials at Butler are bullying students, which makes the school look terrible, but the truly frightening aspect of their actions is the message they are sending and the precedent they are setting for other private institutions around the country. If they punish Zimmerman, it will be out of childish anger and folly, not out of respect for the institution.

Butler University’s administration has already managed to embarrass the university and taint its professional image on a national level far beyond anything a mere blog could do.

We hope that Butler, and universities around the country, learn that in a nation of free thinkers and speakers, sometimes the best way to ensure a message is spread is to try to oppress it.

From the Indiana Daily Student at Indiana University (11/01/09): An editorial entitled “Bulldog bullies” takes Butler’s administration to task:

While the lawsuit has been dropped, possibly because of public backlash to the idea of a university suing one of its own students, campus disciplinary proceedings continue.

As students, we should be outraged. While it is repetitive to reiterate the merits and even the necessity of free speech, especially in a supposedly open and intellectually fostering environment such as a college campus, students should be supported by their university in all forms of “inquiry” and “interactive dialogue” – even the kind that is critical of the university administration.

Students should be able to speak out against their university without fear of legal action or the help of the ACLU, which agreed to take Zimmerman’s case to court.

Butler has become the first university in the United States to file a lawsuit against online speech. While the legal case has now been dropped, it nevertheless sets an alarming precedent – one that we, as students, have a duty to protest.

The editorial goes on to conclude:

Butler University’s mission statement, as found on its Web site, reads as follows:
“Butler’s mission is to provide the highest quality of liberal and professional education and to integrate the liberal arts with professional education, by creating and fostering a stimulating intellectual community built upon interactive dialogue and inquiry among students, faculty and staff.”

For our technology-based generation, “inquiry” and “interactive dialogue” have taken on new forms, such as blogs, but remain the essential foundation of a liberal education and rightfully belong in a university’s mission statement.

While Butler University has given lip service to the ideas, in practice they are attempting to silence those students at their own institution who practice “inquiry” and “dialogue” under the charges of libel, defamation and harassment.

Butler is wrong to use its scarce resources to attempt to intimidate one of its own students into silence. Zimmerman did not libel but rather expressed critical opinions. His blog was a valuable outlet for dissent, conversation and, most importantly, “interactive dialogue and inquiry among students, faculty and staff.”

From The State News at Michigan State University (10/28/09): The paper’s editorial entitled “Student blogger lawsuit sends dangerous message” Butler is harshly taken to task for its actions:

It seems obvious to us the administration’s goal simply was to silence the unidentified writer from crafting a bad image of Butler.

Zimmerman said the blog was a forum — a place for discussion. Like most blogs, these so-called libelous statements seemed to be opinions, not presented as factual statements. Therefore, they wouldn’t seem to fit the definition libel. It doesn’t help Butler’s case that a dean of a university most likely could be deemed a public figure in court, and thus open to greater scrutiny than a normal person.

What is most appalling is that a university is suppressing a student’s right to free speech. In no way is it OK for an administration to sue its own student for expressing a valid opinion. This lawsuit simply undercuts the public’s ability to have honest exchanges of viewpoints.

Will this lawsuit deter students from expressing any contrary opinion on a university’s campus? How is what Zimmerman did any different from a student blowing off some steam in a Facebook status except for the amount of people who viewed it? Many of us have criticized a professor or class utilizing Twitter as well.

Good thing MSU doesn’t file a complaint for every bad economics exam we discuss.

If Butler was afraid of bad public relations because of this blog, it really turned the tables on itself. This story now is on a national level, amplifying originally what it tried to contain.

Butler’s administration appears to have acted recklessly. It suppressed a student’s thoughts at the interest of a valued reputation. This probably isn’t the first case of criticism that has surfaced at a university. Butler should develop a thicker skin and realize universities across the country are criticized every day — through many different mediums. It shouldn’t sue a student based off his or her opinion.

The editorial concludes by noting “Sorry Butler, suing your students doesn’t shush harsh statements. If anything, it just makes them more deafening.”

Although I’m not going to quote from them, you might also want to check out the editorials in The Candor at Benedictine University (11/10/09) and The Stylus at the State University of New York at Brockport (11/11/09).