« Ind. Decisions - "Conviction tossed in 1989 rape case, new trial granted" | Main | Ind. Courts - Allen County spends for Courthouse fixes and jail cameras »

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Ind. Courts - "Clash of schools, blogs raises free-speech issues" [Updated]

Dan McFeely and Tom Spalding of the Indianapolis Star report today in a story about free speech in high school and college settings. The story begins:

A college student and a high school teacher may have pushed the limits of cyber-commentary by lashing out at their schools via the Internet.

Butler University is suing Jess Zimmerman, alleging libel and defamation. Beth Guthrie's Web criticisms have caused such an uproar that Lawrence Township Schools Superintendent Concetta Raimondi has posted a response on the district's Web site.

The cases have sparked a debate over freedom of speech on the Internet. How far can you go? When does criticism become language that harms reputations?

"We all need institutions to make it much clearer to students and employees that they will sue or that there are legal consequences to saying things on a blog or a Web site," said Don Bates, an instructor in strategic public relations at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

"I agree, there's free speech, but then again, common law -- defamation, invasion of privacy, liability -- those rules always applied prior to blogging," said Bates, who has studied laws on the subject.

Re the Butler suit:
In the lawsuit, Butler said the comments harmed the reputations of Butler Provost Jamie Comstock and Fine Arts Dean Peter Alexander. Specifically, the university claims 11 posts from Oct. 14, 2008, to Jan. 1, 2009, contained defamatory statements.

Zimmerman said he took the site down the first week of January. But he recently started a new blog to address the allegations made against him in the lawsuit, all of which he denies. The new blog, akadoe.blogspot .com, is getting up to 2,000 hits a day, Zimmerman said. * * *

Adam Kissel, who monitors student speech issues for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said this is the first case of a university suing a student over online speech.

"More universities are starting to police online speech even when it's off campus," Kissel said. "Universities are finding a lot of speech that used to be private that is now in the public eye. And (they) are not comfortable with public criticism." He thinks the Butler lawsuit is short-sighted. * * *

"Academic freedom does not provide protection for defamation and harassment," Fong wrote. "Indeed, the free exchange of ideas demands that faculty, students and staff be protected from defamation and harassments because these are the means by which bullies intimidate others into silence."

Ice Miller attorney Michael Blickman filed Butler's lawsuit Jan. 8, in part, he said, to compel the anonymous blogger (Zimmerman) to come forward, which happened in June in response to subpoenas.

Since then, talks have been held between attorneys for both parties, but there has been no resolution. The Butler employees are seeking damages, and the lawsuit is pending in Marion Superior Court. No hearings have been set, Blickman said.

Re the Lawrence Central dispute:
Lawrence Township's Guthrie, a teacher at Lawrence Central, took her complaints about harassment by a school administrator to that administrator's boss. And then to the superintendent. Not satisfied with the response, she began to post lengthy rants about the case on her personal Web site.

"For over a year I begged my principal for help," Guthrie e-mailed The Indianapolis Star this week.

Her online postings alleged that an administrator subjected her to "spiraling harassment" that included "sexually inappropriate comments" and actions that made Guthrie's tenure at Lawrence Central "unbearable."

As word spread, Superintendent Raimondi addressed the matter in her online posting this week, asserting "there is more than one side to the story," but that the nature of the issue prevented her from going into details.

The Star story concludes:
"Some people mistakenly believe that the Internet is the Wild West where no rules apply. But that is just wrong," attorney Blickman said. "The Internet is simply today's technological equivalent of yesterday's town square. If you defame someone on the Internet, you should be held accountable."
The Student Press Law Center (SPLC) follows high school and college student (but not high school teachers, unless, I would guess, a teacher is the school paper advisor or something similar) free press issues, and includes news flashes.

"The right of students across the country to speak their minds in blogs and text messages" is the subject of this Sept. 27 ILB entry, and its links.

[Updated] I hadn't noticed before, but the Star story today includes a link to the Complaint that Butler University has filed against the blogger, John Doe. The complaint reiterates all the offending statements.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 17, 2009 10:07 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts