A Chorus, Part One

The number of editorials and columns appearing in college and university newspapers around the country supporting the rights of students to speak their minds, even if when doing so displeases administrators, continues to grow. I’m gratified that all of those who have written agree with what I’ve said from the outset: the issue Butler has made of my writing has implications that extend far beyond the Butler campus and far beyond what they are doing to me as an individual, as unsettling as the latter might be.

Because the list of such pieces, on the right, has gotten so large, to help people get a full sense of what is being said, I’m going to print excerpts from some of them as my main posts today and tomorrow. I hope you’ll feel as I do: the outcry is both large and growing – and the Butler administration is being increasingly isolated as acting in an extreme manner, out of the norm for colleges and universities around the country. The position that Butler has staked out for itself is certainly a unique one, and I don’t understand why its administrators want to continue in this fashion.

Here, then, is a sampling of opinions from around the country:

From The Daily Iowan at the University of Iowa (11/13/09): In an editorial entitled “Administrators’ stifling of student free speech rights troubling,” the paper wrote, part:

A blatantly censorial lawsuit filed against a Butler University junior is a threat to students’ freedom of speech everywhere.

As students-journalists who relish freedom of speech, we have an obligation to stand up for Zimmerman and push back against unconstitutional restrictions on college students.

Since 1964’s New York Times v. Sullivan Supreme Court case, libel charges from public officials require journalists’ knowledge that the information they reported was false and that the reporter had a “reckless disregard” for the truth. Zimmerman’s claims were simply statements of his opinion and, while damning, were completely legal.

Whether they like it, public administrators are subject to intense — and sometimes unsavory — scrutiny. That was certainly true in the Butler University case. But Zimmerman’s critiques did not cross the line from strident evisceration to libelous material. And attempting to limit his speech because of dissenting comments is unconstitutional.

The efforts of the Butler administration set a frightening precedent for college students. In an errant, unconstitutional effort to uphold their own reputations, the administrators concomitantly stymied Zimmerman’s First Amendment rights.

But it’s cases such as these which show just how fragile students’ freedom of expression rights can be — and underscore the need to tirelessly defend them.

The editorial in the Daily Iowan was run with the following cartoon:

From the News-Letter at Johns Hopkins University (11/12/09): The newspaper’s editor-in-chief called Butler’s actions into question in an opinion piece entitled “What’s in a Pseudonym?”:

The counts of "libel" and "defamation" that Butler University cites in its suit against "John Doe" are nothing more than harmless student opinion. Higher education, built for the expansion of young people's mind and boundaries, was meant for young adults to question and consider counts of authority.

Mark Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Clemens, made his satires of society under his world-famous pseudonym, the Bronte sisters published under male pseudonyms and the American constitutional debates used pseudonyms (Alexander Hamilton, John Madison and John Jay wrote under the famous "Publius"). Heck, numerous authors wrote under pseudonyms when calling colonial British operations into question before the Revolutionary War. Pen names have enabled some of the most important American events to transpire, and the hindrance of such a voice by Butler University threatens the freedom of speech in the future of college journalism.

What is in a pseudonym? What dictates the freedom of speech? Obviously, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s decision to shout fire in a crowded theater (Schenck v. United States) does not fall under the freedom of speech. However, Zimmerman's decision to criticize what he viewed as unjust University action is completely within his rights. Apparently he hurt administrative members' feelings and protests against their actions occurred. His singular voice of dissent could not single-handedly cause all the opinions and protests that occurred against the University administration. Butler University's decision to sue John Doe only propagates the statements made by Soodo Nym in his True BU blog. Zimmerman called the actions of Peter Alexander, dean of Butler University's College of Fine Arts, "abuses of power." Although Butler administrators claim these statements "libelous" the actions the University has taken to stifle student voice and silence public question is nothing less than that.

The future of free speech is unclear in today's day and age. Although America's past is rooted in free speech dictated under pseudonyms, clearly as opinions, they have not been libelous. Defamation could be viewed as causing ill opinion. However, Zimmerman's statements were only representative of his views as he called Butler policies into question.

Butler should invest more time into making a difference in its students' lives instead of covering up self-created messes that call its own integrity into question. This reputation band-aid and lawsuit only screams Nixonian ethics - after all, think of all the money that was spent on preserving the reputation of the President of the United States.

Butler University's course of action against Jess Zimmerman is misguided, unnecessary and poses a very terrifying problem for students and journalists everywhere: Will universities nationwide attempt to dictate free speech and muddy the growth of free thinking, following Butler University's course of action? It is up to us, as students and emerging individuals, to defend our right to write, protest and call into question what we view as wrong.

No court or university should keep us from doing just that.

From The Blue Banner at the University of North Carolina Ashville (11/11/09): An editorial entitled “Butler University foolishly stifles freedom of speech” comes out strongly in favor of freedom of speech and equally strongly opposed to the actions of the Butler administration. The editorial said, in part:

Blackballing or cracking down on critics creates a tension that never goes away and exacerbates an already bad situation.

Take UNC Asheville for instance. Here at The Blue Banner, we are sometimes critical of administrators, not because we have a personal vendetta to fulfill, but because we think they are not living up the expectations of this unique, diverse campus.

UNCA’s administration, to their credit, has not interfered in any way and continues to support an unfettered student press, unlike Butler.

Some administrators undoubtedly would say criticism of university leadership, whether at Butler or UNCA, harms the university. It is similar to the argument the Bush administration used to silence critics following 9/11. What those who raise such complaints fail to see is that it is possible to love an institution but disagree with its leadership.

If students like Zimmerman cannot challenge authority when they see something wrong on campus, then how can anything improve?

Butler administrators attempted to kill the messenger rather than solve the problems he pointed out, and it backfired on them.

Even though Butler dropped the lawsuit, the university is still pursuing other disciplinary action, according to an e-mail from Zimmerman.

The Blue Banner stands with Zimmerman and is proud he is actively taking on Butler.

Wishing for things to work out instead of working them out is irresponsible, and Zimmerman demonstrated courage by speaking out on what, undoubtedly, countless other Butler students and employees already knew.

Zimmerman’s case highlights the sad fact that, at universities across the country, the student press is often alone in publicly highlighting failures of school leadership.

As we have shown this semester, too many cases exist on this campus of faculty anonymously complaining about serious problems rather than publicly airing them so that creative and productive solutions can be found.

Sadly, some of the same faculty who encourage student expression and political involvement are themselves silent. But for those who truly cannot speak out for fear of losing their jobs, we will be your voice.

I’ll present some additional material tomorrow. In the meantime, let all of us know what you think of the support being offered around the country.

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.