Run the Numbers

I want to do something a bit different than my usual posts tonight.


Let’s look at the numbers:


33,470 – The number of distinct page loads I am “John Doe” has had in the 29 days it’s been in existence

31,200 – The difference between the number of distinct page loads of "I am John Doe" over a 3 week time period and The True BU had over its entire existence

859 – The number of signatures on the petition to the Butler administration asking for apologies for their actions

140 – The number of days it took for Butler to dismiss the lawsuit against “John Doe” after they used the court system to determine that “John Doe” was me, despite the president’s repeated claim that the university never had any intention of suing a student

58 – The number of comments on the original story about this case in Inside Higher Ed, making it the third most commented upon story for the last month, the ninth most commented upon story for the past six months and the thirteenth most comment upon story for the past year

11 – The number (at the very least) of School of Music faculty members who have endorsed a statement indicating that they provided me with the documents published in The True BU, that they shared their opinions and impressions of what was happening in the fall concerning the removal of the chair, and that they believe that what I wrote was accurate and consistent with their impressions.

10 – The number of university newspapers around the country that have written stories and editorials expressing their concerns about Butler's handling of this situation and the implications for freedom of speech issues across the country

8 – The number of times people signing the petition to the Butler Administration used the word “abuse”

6 – The number of months from when my father was first threatened with the specter of a lawsuit over The True BU to the time the administration informed me that a suit was actually filed, and that was in response to a concern raised by my father about defamatory statements made about him by the provost

4 – The number of months in which the Butler administration threatened to replace “John Doe’s” name with my name in the lawsuit accusing me of libel, defamation, harassment and threats; and the number of days after The True BU was removed from the web but before the Butler administration filed that lawsuit

3 – The number of memos Butler’s president wrote to the entire university faculty in a 15 day period about me

2 – The number of my family members removed from their administrative posts at Butler after The True BU began publishing

1 – The number of times a university has filed a lawsuit over online speech, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

0 - The number occurrences of threatening, harassing, libelous, racist or sexist comments appearing in any of my writing, despite what the Butler administration has repeatedly claimed in communications intended for audiences both on and off campus

Leadership?

I suspect that you’ll be as blown away by what I have to say today as I was when I first heard about it.

The Butler Collegian reporter who has been covering this story interviewed me late yesterday afternoon. During the course of that interview, she asked me to comment on two things the president said to her during his interview. Both items literally left me speechless. First, she told me that he claimed that he had nothing to do with the school’s attorney writing to my attorney on September 27th and saying, “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.” She indicated that the president said that the attorney was acting on his own and without the president’s knowledge or permission. If that’s the case, Butler should immediately fire the attorney and file charges against him with the state bar association for malpractice.

It is odd, though, that the attorney would act in such a fashion since, throughout the summer, his responses were consistently very much delayed because he kept writing that he had to check with the president before saying anything and the president was out of the country and unable to be contacted for various periods of time. Additionally, the threats to substitute my name for “John Doe” were regularly made from the middle of June through this last firm commitment to do so at the end of September – and the president knew nothing about it? If what he said is the truth, Butler might well have an even larger problem with their administration than I thought.

The second thing that the reporter asked me to comment about was the president’s claim that it was my father who first raised the idea of tying my situation in with his desire to gain a retraction from the provost for the terribly disparaging comments she made publicly about him when he was removed as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. For the second time, I was speechless due to the absolutely bizarre nature of the charge. In fact, when my father’s attorney first contacted Butler looking for a retraction from the provost, we had no idea that a lawsuit had been filed. In fact, at that time, the last contact with anyone about The True BU blog was over five months earlier. Rather than releasing any confidential documents, I directed the reporter to my attorney to be certain that the information she received was accurate. Here’s what he had to say to her last night in an e-mail:

“On June 16, 2009, I received a letter from Butler’s attorney, Michael Blickman, informing me that a lawsuit actually had been filed against the TrueBU Blog and that Jess Zimmerman would be substituted as the defendant in that lawsuit. June 16^th was the first time the Zimmermans and I learned that a lawsuit had been filed.

“The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to Michael Zimmerman on June 16, 2009:

‘One other thing. In early January there actually was a lawsuit filed regarding the TrueBU blog. It appears this may be something we now have to deal with. Keep in mind, the main goal of the lawsuit was to shut down the blog. I doubt there are any provable damages even if liability could be shown (which is doubtful). That being said, they will use this as leverage in negotiations on your matter.’”

So, the president distances himself from the actions of his attorney and claims that my father raised the issue of a lawsuit he knew nothing about. And, perhaps worst of all, the president thinks he can pass all of this off as leadership.

Throughout this entire affair, I’ve asked for people to form their own opinions but to be certain that those opinions are consistent with the facts. The president, however, seems to want to change the facts to suit his often-changing explanations. But, as Alain René Le Sage said in 1735 in book X of his novel Gil Blas (L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane), “Facts are stubborn things.”

A quick piece of information: Today, I was on Culture Shocks with Barry Lynn, a national radio show. I've linked to the show on the right, but you can also find it here: http://63.139.221.170/qtmedia/mp3/1522.mp3

Additionally, I will also be on an NPR station next weekend to discuss this situation. I will give more specific details about that show as it gets closer.

Correcting the Record, Again

Amazingly, Butler’s president today distributed his third memo (linked on the right) about me to the faculty in 15 days. It appears that he’s having a hard time finding much to say since a good deal of what he wrote is simply recycled from his earlier memos. Unfortunately, what is new isn’t consistent with the facts – not opinions, facts. And, unfortunately, the memo does what the other two attempted to do – use rhetorical devises to have readers believe things about me for which there is absolutely no evidence.

Even though his memo is only four short paragraphs and 262 words long, I don’t have the space to deal with all of its problems. Let me focus on the highlights. He writes, “The University complaint against ‘John Doe’ had been filed on 8 January, with notice given to ‘Soodo Nym’ at the blog’s email address. Thereafter the personal emails and the blog ceased.”

In fact, the very last post that ever appeared on The True BU blog went up on New Year’s Day, a full week before the president said an e-mail announcing the lawsuit was sent. In fact, The True BU blog was removed from the web on January 4, 2009, four days prior to the lawsuit. I’ll admit it: the university and its lawyers intimidated me into silence by threatening action in early January. I’m not proud of the fact that I backed down, but it’s true; they intimidated me. But it wasn’t the presence of the lawsuit that accomplished the intimidation – it was the president’s anger over the bad publicity he thought the blog was bringing to campus.

It’s worth sharing with you a portion of those last comments that appeared on The True BU blog because they are probably even more pertinent today than they were so long back when they first appeared. “Well, though the holidays have come and gone, I'm certain this incident will still be fresh in the minds of music students and faculty/staff as we begin the new semester. What should also be thought about, as I've said repeatedly, is what all of this says about our leadership. As students, we need to be clear in demanding and expecting that members of the Butler community act with integrity, are accountable for their actions, and embrace what it means to be at an institution of higher education.”

The president also claimed that the lawsuit halted “the personal emails.” His use of the plural is interesting since he knows full well that I wrote only ONE personal e-mail, on December 25. His use of the plural is there to remind you that another e-mail, one that he has repeatedly quoted from, was also sent. He omits to mention, though, what he said in his last memo; there is absolutely no evidence linking that e-mail to me in any way, shape or form. So, how exactly did the lawsuit accomplish any of the things he claims it did?

He also, in the memo and in his response to numerous people who wrote to him, says “No suit was ever brought against Mr. Zimmerman.” Well, no, they never did get around to substituting my name for “John Doe,” but, as I reported in my post on October 19th titled “Who’s the Bully?,” on September 27, the university’s attorney wrote to mine, “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.” Is this the way people of high integrity should be acting?

Finally, the president says that once he was informed that internal disciplinary proceedings were to commence, he asked that the lawsuit be dropped. Well, there are problems with this as well. First, I was informed of those disciplinary proceedings on Thursday and the lawsuit wasn’t dropped until Monday. According to the time lines provided, it appears that it took the university just about as long to drop the suit as it did for them to craft the 50 page suit in the first place! All I can say is, it’s unbelievable. Second, I also can’t believe that I heard about the start of internal disciplinary proceedings before the president did! Third, and more importantly, though, last Tuesday at the open forum, the provost publicly had a very different story to tell. When she was pressed about why the lawsuit had not yet been dropped, she responded to the group that it was a legal issue and the university didn’t want to drop the suit for legal reasons. I guess it’s possible that the provost and the president never conferred on the strategy for moving forward so their inconsistent stories could both be truthful.

What is accurate in the president’s statement is that internal disciplinary proceedings have begun. I worry about them since the president, on numerous occasions, has seen fit to pronounce me guilty. 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 rules for student disciplinary proceedings require confidentiality about most issues. The president has already and repeatedly seen fit to violate these rules. I will not follow his lead. Because my defense is simple, though, what I wrote was the truth and was widely known to be the truth, I need your help. So, I will share with you the charges against me and simply ask you to volunteer information about the charges if you have any such information. Some of the anonymous people who provided me information for The True BU may want to consider coming forward (though I will respect your anonymity if you choose not to).

I have been accused of violating the following three “Rules of Conduct:”

#4) Attempted or actual theft, unauthorized possession of another's property, dishonesty, or knowingly furnishing false information to the University.

#6) Physical, mental, or verbal abuse of any person or any conduct that threatens or endangers the health or safety of any such person on University-owned or related property, or at any University-sponsored and/or supervised functions.

#8) Disorderly conduct, or reckless, intimidating, lewd, indecent, or obscene conduct or expression on University-owned or related property, or at University-sponsored or supervised functions or against a representative of the University.

Thank you for your continued support and for your help in combating these charges.

By the way, Amanda Congdon posted a great video about this crazy situation on her website, Sometimesdaily.com. It’s linked on the right.

Reaching Out

It’s been striking how many of the comments on my blog, and on the news stories, have mentioned the fear that people in the Butler community have about speaking out about our administration. I’ve had many people, both faculty and students, talk about it with me in person. That fear of retaliation was mentioned repeatedly at the teach-in, an event that many faculty members were frightened to attend. This isn’t a call out: In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s a reach-out. It’s an invitation. I can’t promise you that you will no longer be afraid, but I promise that sharing that fear with others makes it far more manageable. If we are to make change, we will need many, many people to be willing to face their fear of the administration and take a principled stand. Then, and only then, Butler will be able to move in the positive direction that its students and faculty so rightly deserve.

Dr. Marshall Gregory, the Ice Professor of English at Butler, is nationally renowned for promoting the liberal arts. In an open letter to the Butler community, he offers an impassioned plea for the University administration to do what’s right, and to help us all move on and move forward.

Because his message is so powerful and because I feel that it is important for students and faculty to see such a distinguished member of our community speaking so forcefully, I am printing (with permission) Dr. Gregory’s letter here. Please share your thoughts about what he has to say.

An Open Letter to the Butler Community

I have been deeply disappointed, frustrated, and angered by the way in which the higher administration at Butler University has handled—or, in my view, mishandled—the affair of the Soodo Nym blogger who said some things that the administrators did not like. I have read the evidence the administration proffers as alleged proof of the student’s terrible assaults on human decency and personal safety, and, in my opinion, what he said seems innocuous, neither dangerous nor threatening, and certainly not hostile enough to justify legal retaliation.

I cannot believe that Butler University’s institutional identity is so vulnerable that the administration thinks it desirable and defensible to react to a bit of undergraduate twitting with heavy legal muscle, bullying intimidation, and self-righteous claims about “civil discourse.” It is hard to imagine any sort of discourse more uncivil than hanging the threat of a lawsuit over the head of an undergraduate for months on end.

What one student writes on a blog, even if it is intemperate, will not damage Butler’s national reputation, but that reputation has been damaged by administrative actions that have focused a national spotlight on the university as a place where students will be threatened with a lawsuit for speaking their minds or for trying to speak truth to power. In one crude display of temper and temperament, Butler’s administration has given the university the appearance of being intellectually obtuse, more invested in power than in discourse, and more committed to its own version of truth (what Bakhtin calls “authoritative discourse”) than to the genial and collegial exchange of opinions. If Butler University has become the kind of place where a student’s attempt to speak his mind is met with displays of naked power and threats of coercion, then Butler University has become a vastly different, and vastly diminished, institution than I have thought it to be.

But in fact the university’s ethos has not changed; it is being misrepresented by the administration’s actions over the past several months. I have been talking about teaching in concentrated and intense ways with faculty members across the Butler University community for more than a decade, and I find it overwhelmingly true that most faculty members are committed viscerally and intellectually to developing the talents, abilities, and capacities of their students. Butler is the kind of place where students are nurtured, treasured, and developed by teachers who possess personal kindness and professional expertise, and who react in measured, nuanced ways to their students’ uncertain management of rhetoric and tone. If I were a parent helping my child choose a college, however, and if every Google search about Butler referred me to a shocking story about how the university’s administration sued a student over a blog, I would drop Butler from consideration in a heartbeat.

When students on this campus break the law by engaging in illegal actions such as, say, underage drinking, or when they cause social disruption by engaging in immature and dysfunctional conduct, these infractions are generally dealt with in nuanced and delicate ways by a student affairs staff that knows how to exercise influence rather than threaten power. In a striking contrast to this practice, it seems very mysterious to me that when a single student blogger expresses frustrations over particular administrative decisions, the university abandons restraint, and, in a huge and over-reactive spasm of authority, suddenly mobilizes its resources of money, lawyers on retainer, and its ability to penetrate the mechanisms of communication (email accounts). It’s the last thing one would expect to see at Butler. It’s like watching Socrates who devoted his life to making arguments suddenly turning into a back alley mugger. Why? What does the administration think is really at stake here? President Fong’s explanations leave me unenlightened and unconvinced.

It seems to me that the university administration should apologize to the entire community for the damage it has done to Butler University’s reputation, and, potentially, to its recruiting ambitions. The administration should especially apologize to the young man whom they have callously placed at the center of a controversy that they themselves seem mostly responsible for having generated.

Marshall Gregory
Ice Professor of English, Liberal Education, and Pedagogy

I am Still "John Doe"

Two days ago, I reported that the president had announced that the school did not, has not, and will not sue me. Unfortunately, the actions of the University again don’t match up with president’s words. The “John Doe” suit remains active in Marion County court.

Since the lawsuit is still open, the school can substitute my name for that of “John Doe” whenever they want to. Are they going to add my name later today? Tomorrow? Next week? Four months from now? Is the president making promises now that he can break once he feels enough people have forgotten? These are questions that I find myself debating almost constantly. The president has said that the school will not sue me. If he intends to make good on that promise, then the school should dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. Given how often and how forcefully I’ve been threatened with this lawsuit, I won’t believe that they don’t intend to sue me until it is dismissed.

Yet the lawsuit sits, open, ready, and waiting. I believe it is not just a threat to me, but to each one of you who might ever dare to question authority. When you check the court dockets for the status of the Butler v. “John Doe” case, it is hard to imagine what the university wants you to think. Could it be that they want you to believe that “John Doe” might be you? I think, in a very public way, the Butler University administration has decided to say, “Do you want this to happen to you?”

This is simply not right. To date, nearly 600 people have signed a petition calling for the administration to apologize for filing the lawsuit and to apologize for the accusations made against me. Many of those who have signed have also left very strong comments:

“It is inconceivable that a University would operate in a climate of fear and that it would sue a student for a blog, anonymous or not. What are Butler students learning about honor and settling differences and free speech?”

-Reverend James F. Mulcahy

“Too many colleges and universities are using their resources to bully and intimidate their faculties and students. This case appears to be an egregious example that is a disgrace to Butler University and the whole of the Academy.

-Bruce A Voyles, Ph.D.

Grinnell College

“I would think that the brightest scholars in the world could handle a little lively on-line candor better than this. I think I can scratch Butler off the list of possible colleges for my three kids if this is the way they resolve things with students. I sure would not want one of my kids treated this way.”

-Reverend Max Ramsey

“As a lifelong academic I am appalled that a student's freedom of expression is being curtailed and threatened. This defies basic human goodness and decency.”

-Steve A. Wiggins, Ph.D.

If you have not signed the petition, I urge you to consider doing so. If you have signed it, go back and read what our friends on campus and around the country are saying. Their statements are very moving and provide a markedly different perspective than the one Butler administration is promoting. The petition can be found by going to www.ipetitions.com/petition/butler

Right now, I am “John Doe.” The president seems to want you to believe that you too can be “John Doe.”

Don’t let the administration scare you: They scared me once and I sat down, silenced. Now, I’m standing again and I don’t intend to go anywhere. I appreciate those of you who are standing with me and I’m confident and hopeful that together we will make a difference.

The Power of Fear

While today was a busy day, this post won’t be too long.

I want to start tonight by telling you about my discussion in January with the vice president for student affairs. He summoned me to his office over winter break, when the university was closed, and refused to tell me why we were meeting. I got there and requested that I be able to have representation since he had the dean of students by his side. I was told that that would not be allowed. I asked to leave. He asked me to stay. I should have left, but I didn’t. That was my first mistake. We spoke for a little while, and at one point he asked me about the December 25th Email. I should have refused to answer his question. That was my second mistake. Instead, I was scared, and I lied. That was my third mistake. I apologize to all of you: It was a mistake that should not have been made. Like I said yesterday, I hope you’re still with me.

There are two more things I want to talk briefly about tonight:

The president, in his memo yesterday (linked on the right), made the claim that “the University did not, has not, and will not sue Jess Zimmerman.” The lawsuit that the university filed against “John Doe” (me) remains open in the court system and remains a very big threat both to me and to all of those who feel they can’t speak out about what is happening on campus. I’ve started a counter, also on the right, that will tell you how long the lawsuit has remained active since the president promised the University community the school would not be pursuing it.

Tonight there was a public forum organized by a small group of faculty to discuss this topic, and discourse in general, and I want to thank everyone who came. It was a very, very emotional evening for me and, to be honest, I’m a little drained right now. Surrounded by interested and passionate students and faculty, I felt I was in extremely good company. I felt supported, and I wasn’t the only one. One of the students who spoke said that she had been afraid to send an Email that expressed her concerns about the actions of the administration. With such support around her, she stood up and said she was no longer afraid. It was the support in that room that helped eradicate her fear, and I hope that that support continues to spread throughout campus. While much of what was discussed tonight revolved around me and this situation specifically, I think we are beginning to see this issue as a much bigger one. What the administration is doing to me, they can do to anyone on campus who feels the need to speak out. It sets a dangerous precedent for the academic community at Butler and on other campuses. When so many of us band together to protect the rights of any one of us, the rights of all of us are protected. For now, I want to know what you thought. If you went, what did you take away from tonight’s discussion? What are your thoughts about what was said?

One last thing before closing: I’ve linked to a copy of Butler University English Professor Bill Watts’s reaction to the president’s October 19th memo to faculty.

Who's the Bully?

Breaking news on campus today. The president wrote in a memo sent to all faculty (linked on the right) that the University will not sue me, with the implication being that they never had the intention of suing me. Their purpose, he claims, in filing a suit against “John Doe” was to find out who “John Doe” was. Now that he knows that “John Doe” is a student, he seems insulted that anybody would think that he would allow Butler to sue a student.

If only the facts supported those claims.

The fact is, the president said on New Year’s Eve, more than a week before the lawsuit was filed, that he had incontrovertible proof that I was Soodo Nym. Was he telling the truth then or now? It can’t be both.

The fact is, on June 9^th, he says the court provided him with incontrovertible proof that I was Soodo Nym. Did he dismiss the suit? Absolutely not. In fact, it was a week later that the University first threatened to substitute my name in the suit for that of “John Doe.” The University’s attorney wrote, “It will now be appropriate to substitute Jess Zimmerman as the defendant in that lawsuit.”

The fact is, on September 27^th, the University, apparently tired of making threats, promised to substitute my name for “John Doe.” In an Email to my attorney their lawyer wrote, “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.”

The fact is, throughout the entire summer, and to this day, they have refused to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. (What that means is that they have the ability to re-file the suit at any time they want, even if they were to withdraw it.)

Simply put, the president’s statement is completely at odds with the facts. Even after he knew I was the blogger, he wielded the lawsuit like a club.

But let’s go one step further, because he’s also not telling you the truth about why it was so important to know who the blogger was. Repeatedly, when talking about the safety of the community (and referencing real violent acts), he cited a portion of a single sentence from a single Email that I did not write and that he agrees there is no evidence that I wrote, as the trigger for instigating the lawsuit. That sentence, he claims, is what crossed the line.

Let’s look at the facts.

The fact is, the Email in question was written on January second.

The fact is, the lawsuit was first threatened on New Year’s Eve.

Those two points are facts, not opinions. The only logical conclusion, other than that the president has not been truthful with the community about this issue, is that the Email that he found so offensive was written at his behest. Even I don’t believe that.

Let’s talk about one other fact, now.

The fact is, the president has decided not to attempt to prove any of his outrageous charges of defamation, harassment, threats, and libel in a court of law. My lawyers are confident that nothing that I wrote comes close to approaching the standard necessary for Butler to win a judgment in their favor. Similarly, my writings have now been read by a large number of lawyers and non-lawyers alike on the internet and they have formed exactly the same conclusion. What the president is attempting to do, by removing this from the court system, is to convict me, without any evidence, simply by assertion. He writes, “The free exchange of ideas demands that faculty, students, and staff be protected from defamation, harassment, threats, and intimidation because these are the means by which bullies intimidate others into silence.” The president’s implication is that I am guilty as charged and deserve punishment. The reality is, The True BU blog closed because the threat of a lawsuit intimidated me into silence. Since its closure, I have regularly been threatened with a lawsuit and disciplinary action and now, the president is attempting to convict me without a trial, using only the unfounded assertions in his memo. Who’s the bully here?

There is one more point I know I should discuss here. Yes, I lied to the vice president for student affairs about sending the December 25^th Email. It was a difficult situation, one that deserves and will get its own post, and I made a mistake that I should not have made. For lying, I am sorry.

I hope you’re still with me.