On Monday, October 10th, at approximately 2:00pm (Eastern Standard Time), I was contacted by Mark Krawzyck, head of the Networking Department at Greenville Technical College, where I am currently enrolled as a networking student. He informed me that a complaint had been filed by an instructor in his department, one Bob Whaite, about a blog entry I had written (see: The Asshole Database Instructor) two days prior, which featured him somewhat prominently and in a less than flattering light.

Now, I would like to preface this by saying that I have absolutely no problem with Mark. I happen to think he’s the best instructor I’ve had thus far, and I enjoy his class(es) immensely. I realize he was simply the 3rd party attempting to handle a complaint issued by one of his employees and that none of this reflects his personal opinion in the matter, merely his role as director of the department.

The gist of the conversation was that, while entitled to my opinion, my posting of it on the public internet (my personally funded and hosted blog) was unprofessional. While not said in so many words, the implication was that I should either remove the post “or else.” I believe the exact phrase used (multiple times) was “the Administration would not take too kindly [to the post].” I agreed that it was probably unprofessional, but stood by my opinion and defended my right to express it in the public forum of my choosing. Indeed, Bob’s initial comment, which precipitated the entire event, was also quite unprofessional as well.

During our conversation, I also attempted to point out to Mark the existence of multiple public websites dedicated to the review and ranking of professors and teachers. Sites such as Rate My Professors (Professor rating), Rate A Prof (Professor rating), Pick A Prof (Professor rating and scheduling based upon those ratings), and even the K-12 version Rate My Teachers (Teacher rating) are dedicated to allowing prospective students to learn about a teacher before enrolling in a class they may later learn to regret taking.

For reference, I looked up both Bob Whaite and Mark Krawzyck on Rate My Professors. While Mark had no reviews, here are the results for Bob (the maximum score per category is 5.0):

• Bob Whaite
  • Easiness: 4.5
  • Helpfulness: 3.0
  • Clarity: 2.5
  • Overall: 2.8
  • Comment(s):
    • Mr. Whaite is a different guy.

This is where the seemingly double-standard appears. Mark was “not concerned with what’s online” in reference to the above sites, while still opposed to my posting of the same type of information. “The Setonian” – the “Voice of the Seton Hall Community” -, a publication of Seton Hall University, which held a rank of 46th on the Rate My Professors top 50 list of most-ranked schools at the time, even wrote an article about the website – yet somehow those optionally anonymous comments aren’t a problem.

At this point in the conversation, my choice of the phrase “asshole” was brought into question. I’m still unsure what difference it would have made, had I simply called him a “jerk”, as the stated opinion is still unquestionably the same, but my choice of adjectives apparently compounded the problem. I personally have no problem with even excessive use of profanity. However, since the word “slander” was also thrown out in relation to my post, I decided to take it upon myself to do some research into legal definitions, rulings, and precedents surrounding the right to freedom of speech.

According to Dancing with Lawyers, on their Libel, Slander and Defamation of Character information page:

Defamation is written or spoken injury to a person or organization’s reputation. Libel is the written act of defamation, vs. slander, the oral act of defamation.

Obviously, slander is clearly out, since this was a written (typed) statement. What we’re dealing with now is actually ‘libel’, but in any case, it’s all a certain type of ‘defamation’ we’re talking about. According to the EFF on one of their Bloggers’ FAQ pages dealing with Online Defamation Law, the elements of a defamation claim are:

The elements that must be proved to establish defamation are:

1. a publication to one other than the person defamed;
2. a false statement of fact;
3. that is understood as

a. being of and concerning the plaintiff; and
b. tending to harm the reputation of plaintiff.

4. If the plaintiff is a public figure, he or she must also prove actual malice.

The problem with this claim lies in point number 2. After having re-read my post multiple times, I’ve yet to find any instance that could even potentially be considered to be a statement of fact. All I did was demonstrate my personal opinion. Not once did I encourage others not to take his classes, nor did I infer that he should be fired or disciplined in any way. I simply put forth all the facts of the matter and my personal opinion. Everyone else is left to come to their own conclusions, whatever they may be.

The other potential problem is in point number 4 of these requirements. According to the general guidelines found on the above mentioned EFF Bloggers’ FAQ page, it could potentially be argued that Mr. Whaite is indeed a “public figure” of sorts. If this point were successfully argued, he would then face the problem of proving actual malice. As defined in Wikipedia:

Malice is a legal term referring to a party’s intention to do injury to another party.

Since this is most certainly and obviously not true, no defamation suit could be filed, and any cease and desist order related there unto could easily be met with a counter-suit over the attempt to unlawfully restrict my Constitutional right to freedom of speech.

Since we’ve unequivocally established that there is, in fact, no legal issue here, we’ll move on to a more personal level.

Earlier today, I was finally able to contact Bob, as he’d presumably been out of his office all day Tuesday. During the course of this conversation, he informed me how he’d located the original blog entry and notified me that the matter had been reported to the Dean of Student Services (who I presume is Mark’s supervisor).

I must admit that while it would certainly be somewhat exciting to become involved in a court case which would no doubt fall flat on its face, while still affording myself and my blog a great deal of publicity (and probably buy me that Porsche I’ve always wanted), I’m anxious to get this matter resolved. Quite frankly, if I didn’t have time to do the original homework assignment which kicked off this whole chain of events, I also don’t have time to waste in meetings with instructors, deans and lawyers, nor do I have further time to waste reading pages upon pages of legal dribble that more than provides my rights under the law.

With that said, I’m afraid I must decline to remove the controversial post on multiple grounds.

Not only do I still partially agree with my original opinion (we’ll get to that in more detail momentarily), but I’ve also become quite bitter about this attempt to silence my right to free speech. I strongly oppose censorship in any form, and support freedom of speech by both individuals and the press 100%. I feel that if someone is unable accept criticism; they should not be in a position where they will draw or generate it. Regardless of profane content, if Mr. Whaite cannot accept my opinion (and potentially learn from the things I pointed out), then perhaps he should consider an alternative career choice. Teachers of all types draw criticism on a regular basis. Be it from students like me or parents of an elementary schooler who was forced to miss recess, it’s the world we live in, and one of the risks of the job.

As I mentioned, I only partially agree with my original stance that Bob is an asshole. I will admit that I may have been hasty in judging him to that extent, as I’ve had very few interactions with him thus far. While I found him to be quite unprofessional in his internet correspondence with me, he was nothing but pleasant during our earlier telephone conversation. In fact, if I didn’t have this pre-formed opinion of him already, I’d probably have considered him a downright cheerful and all-around nice guy. I’m more than willing to admit that in this isolated incident, I may simply have caught him on a bad day. We’ve all had days where we’re overly stressed, possibly tired, and have a fuse that is considerably shorter than normal. It’s only to be expected that I could have been the unfortunate recipient of his final straw.

To you, Mr. Whaite, I apologize. While I fully support my right to express myself in any manner I deem necessary, I admit I was quite brash and unnecessarily harsh. You may have been unprofessional in my opinion, but it did not justify my branding of you as an asshole (much less a douchebag). While this has certainly been an interesting experience (and a first for both of us I believe), I hope we’ll be able to put this entire mess behind us and try to recover something resembling a normal teacher-student relationship.

If you would like to reach me sometime later this week, I’m not at home during the days, so calling the number in my file really won’t do much good. However, please feel free to email me (either at chris@doesnthaveone.com or through CampusCruiser or WebCT), and I’ll be happy to give you a call. Otherwise, I’ll stop by your office Monday morning after class, as planned.