We Get Letters! We Get Lots and Lots of Letters!

Peter Bailey Doesn't Like Us, Misspells Some Things, Pretends to Be a Legal Scholar and Doesn't Have a Sense of Humor

We recently received this bit of unclever (or even well-reasoned) invective at takebackourcampus@yahoo.com.

Dear Take Back,
One difference between Margaret Kent Bass and Rob Loftis and TBOC is that those two people take complete personal responsibility for the intellectual/ideological positions they articulate. Another difference is that they don't hide behind cute pseudonyms, nor do they personally attack students whose positions differ from theirs and defend that activity as "satire." They also know that "a clever mixture of news, wit, satire and commentary" creates nothing but rhetorical confusion, allowing its perpetrators to cloak expressive irresponsibility behind claims of freedom of speech. And now TBOC is suing Professor Bass for exercising her right of free speech in using the blog as a subject for class debate. Great--welcome to revengeland. You understand, I hope, that some liberals in the country would argue that there are larger issues for a publication like yours to be taking on than the SLU administration or the Canton chapter of Young Republicans? Seriously, guys, it's time to graduate from SLU. Your litigation is a nuisance suit, and you know it, and one
that reduces to hypocritical mockery your testimonials to the sanctity of free speech.

Peter Bailey
Professor of English
SLU

[In the interest of full disclosure, I must mention that the above text is the second draft of the letter Dr. Bailey sent to TBOC. Being a sport, I replied to his original message and offered him the chance to fix his spelling and grammar errors before his mild bit of rage was put on public display as a silly testament to the politics of tenured professors. He was nice and did so immediately]

But onto the (unbecomingly thick and imprecisely sliced) meat of his message. Bailey first points out the difference between Margaret Kent Bass, Rob Loftis and Take Back Our Campus. Some might call this point needless. After all, no one has ever compared Margaret Kent Bass or Rob Loftis to TBOC. "But what the hell," Bailey must have thought in his safe Carrollian Wonderland of academic outrage. "'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' Why is a raven not like a writing desk?"

Onward now, following Bailey's blunt form: One difference between Peter Bailey and Take Back Our Campus is that we respect the intelligence of our readers, trusting them as capable of separating news from opinion from satire. Another difference is that we don't believe the lack of a punchingly blatant frame "creates nothing but rhetorical confusion." We trust our readers to distinguish a joke from an argument and trust that when our writing (as it often does) injects humor into more serious polemics, our readers will accept the gags in the spirit in which they were offered.

Seriously now (and Petey-- do those words suitably indicate that the following paragraph contains a different point? I'm unsure how much more obvious I can be, but I wouldn't want to add to your "rhetorical confusion"), Bailey seems to think that Dr. Bass' violation of TBOC's copyright is protected by the umbra of "free speech." Though Bailey might claim "fair use" (which would also be a mistake, as Dr. Bass wasn't free to reproduce our work in print form for the purposes of her class), but "free speech" has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.

[Am I the only one who sees a problem in at least two members of the English department not knowing (or deliberately ignoring) the basics of copyright law? Perhaps the administration can use this as a "teachable moment" and hold some kind of remedial seminar for them.]

While it's certainly arrogant of Bailey to presume to speak for the voiceless masses (his group of "some liberals in the country"), I was puzzled by his reference to TBOC as "a publication like yours...." TBOC is a blog about St. Lawrence University and the surrounding area. We always have been. We provide an alternative viewpoint, one not found in University-sponsored publications. We are going to write about SLU issues. While I am solipsistic enough to assume that the world is clamoring for my views on Social Security (Bush is looking to privatize Social Security to boost a failing Wall Street and raise the economic indicators just enough for Republicans to win in 2008), Iraq [our next target is either Azerbaijan, Sudan, or (again) Venezuala-- just follow the oil], or Terri Schiavo (only her body died today-- her brain's been dead for fifteen years. And who decided that a woman with an eating disorder would wish to have a feeding tube?)-- for now TBOC will continue writing about St. Lawrence and the surrounding community. However, it is obvious that the subtext of Bailey's argument is that we should cease the deserved scrutiny of the administration and SLU Republicans. Why? It makes him a little nervous. While academics and their administrative bosses (Saul Bellow here: "wasn't a college dean a kind of executive?") ostensibly encourage debate, occasionally support free speech and rally to issues both politically correct and politically unimportant, they detest personal accountability. "Why, oh why," they lament in successive fugues (an example of which can be found here, which I will be sure to expound on in coming days). "Must we be held accountable for the things we do and say? Can't everyone just be nice and let us do whatever we want?"

While I found humorous Bailey's invocation of the uncharming staples of Grade Seven forensics (e.g. "Seriously, guys..." "and you know it..."), I was mystified by his inability to understand a joke. Why didn't Bailey, the author of a well reviewed book about Woody Allen, understand that my announcement of a lawsuit against Margaret Kent Bass and St. Lawrence University was a bit of parody meant to highlight the betrayingly illiberal and unacademic nature of SLU's lawsuit against TBOC?

In the hopes of nudging him a little further to the punchline, I sent Bailey a nice note, asking what he thought of SLU's lawsuit against TBOC vis a vis TBOC's lawsuit against SLU. Hoping to establish a friendly tone (he had, after all, addressed the TBOC staff as "guys"), I addressed the letter to "Petey," asked his opinion on Woody Allen's latest feature and wrote "Personally, I've always thought that Interiors was Woody Allen's funniest movie." [For non-Allen fans, Interiors is a stark drama that doesn't even have music, much less any jokes.]

At the time (and no, I hadn't mirthfully been smoking hashish by myself all evening while reading Jonathan Safran Foer's latest novel, which I highly recommend), I thought Bailey might have been charmed by this bit of insousiance. I was so wrong. The next day, I received this:

Christian Evangelist,
I responded to one e-mail addressed to "Petey," but if you want to have serious discussions about significant issues with adults, you need to cut out the sophomoric, wiseass forms of address and the "I-think INTERIORS-is-Allen's-funniest-movie" bullshit. Then we'll talk.
Peter Bailey

Michael Chabon (in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) wrote about the latter titular character, "[l]ike all of his friends, he considered it a compliment when somebody called him a wiseass." I'll follow Sam Clay's lead.

If Peter Bailey refuses to discuss an issue without first being addressed in whatever hierarchical manner he deems appropriate (inconsistent with the colloquial tone he originally established by addressing the TBOC staff as "guys"), then he can continue to jabber at whatever sycophants will use his title. But at TBOC, we've always ignored self-important and hierophantic behavior, instead choosing to address the merit of the argument. Indeed, that's the only way to impose on the artificial power structures built by academia.

But in spite of all the evidence, journalistic balance forces me to write that Peter Bailey's probably a nice guy who might even have an argument if he bothered to coalesce his thoughts into something more coherent than his folksy use of "bullshit." Just don't try to tell him a joke.

TBOC Set to Sue SLU for Copyright Violations

US Code Title 17 Chapter 1,111(b) Secondary Transmission of Primary Transmission to Controlled Group.— Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a) and (c), the secondary transmission to the public of a performance or display of a work embodied in a primary transmission is actionable as an act of infringement under section 501, and is fully subject to the remedies provided by sections 502 through 506 and 509, if the primary transmission is not made for reception by the public at large but is controlled and limited to reception by particular members of the public....

So it would seem that the "primary transmission" of Take Back Our Campus, the fragile existence of which rests on Blogger (owned by Google) to provide us with free web-space in exchange for posting third-party ads (most often from the Republican party or some conservative think-tank), is only on http://tboclives.blogspot.com (as described in the "controlled and limited to reception by particular members of the public" statement). We gladly provide our work to the persons who visit http://tboclives.blogspot.com, free of charge, and have never asked for any more remuneration than your comments on our efforts.

However, our "primary transmission" (via Blogger) has been infringed upon. Margaret Kent Bass, in her Fall 2004 class "10 Ways to Fight Hate on Campus," felt free to make print copies of our work (on at least two separate occasions) and distribute the illegal copies in her class. She even assigned her students to write essays about our articles.

The situation is exactly the same as if Dr. Bass had taken a chapter from a book (a "primary transmission"), photocopied it and distributed it to her class ("secondary transmission to the public of a performance or display of a work embodied in a primary transmission"). That Take Back Our Campus exists in a digital rather than printed medium is not a factor. At the least, Dr. Bass should have asked TBOC for permission to reproduce our works for the purposes of her class. Though we would have gladly given reprint permission (in exchange for a fair donation to the charity of our choice), Dr. Bass decided to ignore all our rights (and our entitlement to reprint fees) and declined to even send us an e-mail telling us that she had assigned our work to her class.

Thus, we feel more than free to exercise our legal right to file suit against St. Lawrence University for Dr. Bass' obvious "secondary transmission to the public [i.e. her class] of a performance or display of a work embodied in a primary transmission [i.e. http://tboclives.blogspot.com]," which, as the above quoted text states, "is actionable as an act of infringement under section 501, and is fully subject to the remedies provided by sections 502 through 506 and 509...."

We never wished to engage in the ugly and unbecoming business of litigation. For a time, we were willing to ignore Dr. Bass' violation of our rights. We encouraged her students to send us their essays about TBOC. We even sponsored a contest for them. But as the SLU administration has chosen the lesser path of legal bullying rather than engaging us in dialogue, we've no option but to respond in kind with our own more meritorious lawsuit.

Indeed, our case against SLU is much more firm than theirs against us. They can't possibly claim "fair use," as an academic class is not a journalistic outlet, or "innocent infringement," as Dr. Bass and any other professor or administrative figure knows the proper procedure for reproduction of a work for the purposes of an academic class. (Would it be fair to say they've infringed upon our "reproductive rights"? Probably not, but I wouldn't want to be accused of losing humor in fury.)

As for Dr. Bass and the rest of the SLU Administration, well, let's call this a "teachable moment"-- don't throw stones when your Ivory Tower is made of glass.

Still More Coverage of Take Back Our Campus

And some unbecoming rambling about the nature of blogging

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about-- and that is not being talked about." --Oscar Wilde

Some of us idly Google our names wondering what those on the internet are writing about us. There's nearly nothing concerning my real name on the internet, but Googling "Take Back Our Campus" brings more coverage than I can physically read.

Tonight, I found this short piece (again, by one of those wily Canadians!) about SLU's lawsuit against TBOC:

It seems to me that copyright was never intended to act as a lever in this way - but with special dispensation for content owners, it serves as a conduit otherwise inaccessible in most civil and criminal matters. File this one under 'abuse'.

It's interesting and worth linking to-- still, I worry about my habit of reading what is written about me (or written about my secret identity). Today I had the awful vision of Peter Parker, in a vespertine and desperately intoxicated moment, typing "Spiderman" into Lexis-Nexis for the anxious pleasure of reading about himself. Cazart.

Though, unlike some lesser-read and more vainglorious bloggers, I've usually refrained from writing about myself, I couldn't help but wonder about the nature of blogging. Is it unbecomingly like Kafka's Conversation With the Supplicant, in which a young man persists in making a spectacle of himself before a public altar?

When confronted by the narrator, the young man confesses:

"'There has never been a time in which I have been convinced from within myself that I am alive. You see, I have only such a fugitive awareness of things around me that I always feel they were once real and are not fleeting away. I have a constant longing, my dear sir, to catch a glimpse of things as they may have been before they show themselves to me. I feel that then they were calm and beautiful. It must be so, for I often near people talking about them as though they were.'"

Like the supplicant, do I nightly clack at my keyboard and fill my ashtray just to reaffirm that I actually exist? Is blogging nothing more than vain efforts? If that's true, then why am I so anxious every time I check my look at TBOC or check my e-mail? It's not the lawsuit (which is utterly frivolous and has left me firmly unawed), but rather, the fact that what I write may actually matter.

It is a wonderful thing to aspire to the "calm and beautiful" but for now I subsist on knowing that I write about things real and as they are-- always desperately hoping for "as though they were."

Steve Horwitz Claims TBOC Harasses Students

Confirms that Sullivan Lied

I recently came across this 3/6/05 post from SCSUScholars.com. Steve Horwitz, Professor of Economics and Dean of the First-Year Studies program, wrote a letter responding to SCCU's earlier coverage of Take Back Our Campus:

This blog is not just a "criticize the administration" blog. If that were it, so be it. The problem is that they have attacked and harassed other students by name. What they're doing is in violation of our student conduct policies. The decision to block access was an attempt (feeble yes) to protect those students from harrassment. The lawsuit is not designed to shut down the blog, but for discovery to find out with certainty who the students are behind it. If the president wanted to shut them down, he would have gone to the ISP.

How interesting, then, was the timing of SLU's block of TBOC-- mere weeks after we first began attacking administrative policies. And the lawsuit was filed shortly after we first reported the ban on TBOC and leaked President Sullivan's secret memo to the faculty council chair announcing the block.

However, if Horwitz is going to charge us with "harrassment," it would be kind of him to spell it properly. (Steve-- the SLU Writing Center is open six days a week and the nice tutors are always happy to look over your drafts.--ed.) After all, Horwitz himself is no stranger to ad hominem attacks on students. In particular, he's fond of leveling baseless charges of "anti-Semitism," the most reviled taboo of the 20th century, in an attempt to silence those with whom he disagrees.

In the fall of 2003, the students of SLU's Students for Justice in Palestine invited scholar (and critic of Israel's imperial policies) Norman Finkelstein to speak on campus. Horwitz (without having read Finkelstein's work) wasted no time in leveling unsubtle charges of anti-Semitism at Finkelstein. Then, not having attended Finkelstein's lecture, Horwitz proceeded to claim "anti-Semitism" on the part of the students who brought Finkelstein to SLU's campus. After being confronted as to the veracity of these charges, Horwitz wrote here (scroll down for second-to-last post): "The students who invited [Finkelstein] are not anti-semitic for inviting NF (although they could be for other reasons)."

The curious phrase "although they could be for other reasons" is an accusation in furtherance of which Horwitz declines to cite any evidence. It reminds one of nothing more than the dirty tactics used by Karl Rove in the 2000 Republican primary. During the 2000 South Carolina primary for the Republican Presidential nomination, pollsters hired by the Bush campaign conducted a poll in which voters were asked if they would support John McCain if they knew he had fathered an "illegitimate" Black child. The question was ridiculous-- McCain had never fathered a Black child, "legitimate" or not-- though the suggestion seemed plausible to South Carolina voters, as McCain had recently been campaigning with his daughter, an adopted Bangladeshi. Rove knew that the accusation against McCain was false-- but that wasn't the point of the question. The point was to plant the suggestion among the voting populace in order to distract them from the issues with ad hominem attacks.

Similarly, Horwitz's caveat "although they could be [anti-Semitic] for other reasons" continues his stream of personal attacks against the individual students who brought Norman Finkelstein to SLU. The "I have no evidence for this, but it could be true..." formulation is the most transparent, lazy and irresponsible form of criticism in which Horwitz could waste his credibility as a faculty member and administrator.

However, we owe Horwitz some thanks. After all, his letter clearly states: "The lawsuit is not designed to shut down the blog, but for discovery to find out with certainty who the students are behind it." Despite the syntactically vexing "for discovery to find out with certainty," Horwitz has made evident that President Sullivan and the administration misrepresented their case to a federal court. The lawsuit, ostensibly filed for copyright violations [in which we posted non-copyrighted pictures from SLU's website, but rather than ask us to remove the photos, SLU copyrighted the pictures (one of which was of Horwitz) and decided to sue us] has nothing do with copyright protection-- after all, we've already taken down the photos. The suit, as Horwitz explained, is to discover our identities. The administration can then avenge their hurt egos and use their vicious power to attack in any way they like.

More Coverage of Take Back Our Campus

This Time, Closer to Home

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Rob Loftis has recently written about us on his blog, Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk. The first entry (defending our anonymity) can be found here. He goes on to mention us here and here and writes a full post about us here.

Dr. Loftis was kind enough to send me a link to his post, to which I offered a correction and a clarification. Loftis was then nice enough to sort through the not one but two opium-addled e-mails I sent as a way of murky reply and post the correction here.

Though Loftis offers his own criticisms of Take Back Our Campus (calling us "ill-behaved young people, who... seem to think it is cute when they correct other people's grammar, rather than just annoying"), he ultimately supports our efforts and our right to free speech. He also agrees (with everyone else in the blogosphere) that SLU is unreasonable with their lawsuit against TBOC.

We thank Dr. Loftis for openly supporting us, for engaging us with his own criticisms of TBOC (rather than denouncing us-- as other faculty have chosen to do-- as faculty meetings and over the fac/staff list-serv, to which students don't have access), and most importantly, for being willing to stand in support of academic freedom.

[Dude, mention what I told you to write.--ed. Keep it in your pants, mate; I'm getting around to it.--CE.]

Loftis, as an untenured faculty member (and currently not even tenure-track) deserves hearty congratulations for his courage and unwavering adherence to the principles of academia in taking a stand against the unjust policies of his employer.

[Dude! Get it out there!--ed. Fine. If it will make you fucking happy, here goes.--CE]

My gin-fueled editor has asked me to mention that, "this guy's balls deserve odes, bee-yotch!" In that spirit, he has composed the following limerick:

There once was a doctor named Loftis,
Who challenged his school's panoptic,
With balls made of brass,
Rhythm and class,
He savored his job 'til he lost it.

[That's the shizzle! That's gotta get all the ladies knowing I'm a sensitive poet/rebel. Mo' poontang for the editor!--ed. (Sigh) Indeed. As Shelley wrote: "What is all this sweet work worth/ If thou kiss not me?"--CE. Who? But holla at ya, Kizzy Ev, my work is really *sweet*!--ed. So "sweet" it could be confused with dental rot.--CE]

Anyway, thanks to Rob Loftis. To our readers-- take his classes, give him good evaluations and get him a tenure-track job at SLU. He deserves one.

Whither Pinocchio?

Sullivan Fibs to Faculty

At a recent faculty meeting, President Dan Sullivan assured SLU's faculty that (among a few other whoppers) the sole purpose of the lawsuit against Take Back Our Campus is to discover our identities. However, the minutes of the meeting reflect almost none of Sullivan's statements. In fact, the minutes don't say anything about Sullivan's responses. This elision is either (kindly, now) curious or (frankly, now) mercenary.

Why is this noteworthy? Because the brief filed makes no mention of discovering out identities except as a means of pursuing damages for copyright infringement. The brief states: "This is a civil action seeking damages and injunctive relief for copyright infringement under copyright laws of the United States...." (It stands to mention that we've already given them the "injunctive relief"-- we removed the four pictures in question from our site.) In contrast, Sullivan made it clear to the faculty that the purpose of the lawsuit was to discover our identities. Sullivan made similar statements during a Thelmo question and answer session and at the protest held in support of free speech and Take Back Our Campus. News 10 Now (in conjunction with the Central New York Business Journal) reported:

St. Lawrence is using federal copyright law in an ongoing lawsuit. The school is suing unknown people who posted copyrighted photos on a website called "Take back our campus." The lawsuit will help St. Lawrence to find out who's behind the site.

In short, the real reason for the suit remains unknown. What we do know is that Sullivan misinformed the faculty and students in an attempt to placate their activism and inquiry, or instructed his attorneys to misinform a federal court about the true purpose of SLU's lawsuit. Regardless, he lied to either the trustees, faculty and students-- or to a federal court.

Adlai Stevenson once offered a bargain: "I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." If I were a lesser man, that offer would already be on the table. But I have no desire to make any such offer to Dan Sullivan. By unilaterally (without consulting the Information Technology Advisory Board, the faculty or the students) issuing the new AUP, with its draconian surveillance of e-mails and personal files and the Stalinist trickle-to-downpour restriction of information access (as everyone on the SLU network, with the possible exception of IT and a few administrators, is currently blocked from reading Take Back Our Campus), Sullivan has made a mockery of the classically liberal principles of free inquiry on which any university stands. By using SLU funds to file a frivolous federal lawsuit against Take Back Our Campus, Sullivan has shown that he's unafraid to waste precious tuition dollars and abuse the court system in order to silence those who might disagree with University policy.

But as I told the Central New York Business Journal when the lawsuit was first filed: "We have no plans to discontinue the site. It’s always been our plan not only to produce a great publication, but to train budding journalists in the art of muckraking." Thus we continue.

Sullivan has claimed that the cost of the legal action against TBOC is nearly negligible. However, we already know that the University has spent more than $3000 removing old hard drives and searching them for clues to our identities. This includes having some hard drives removed, replaced and shipped from Kenya to Canton. (In statements at the rally for free speech and Take Back Our Campus, Sullivan confirmed that hard drives had in fact been shipped from Kenya.)

As for the legal fees involved, it's no secret that Bond, Shoeneck and King is one of the most expensive law firms in Syracuse, paying third-year law students a starting salary of $68,000. [Wowsers! And what did the Take Back Our Campus staff get last year?--ed. Um... I think I gave everyone a pack of duty-free cigarettes and a copy of A Critique of Pure Tolerance.--CE.] One North Country lawyer we spoke with estimated that the legal action thus far has cost the University "at least $12,000."

That brings the University's total tab to over $15,000 so far. That doesn't even include any forthcoming trial fees. Jury selection (as SLU has demanded a jury trial) is sure to jack that up even further. And don't forget the five-hour round trip drive (sure to be billed at normal rates) for the Syracuse-based attorneys.

So it seems that when the egos of Dan Sullivan and the administration have been wounded, no expense is too small to silence the offenders-- assuming, of course, that it's the University community footing the bill.

For fun, let us know on what you think the University should have spent those thousands. Just post in our comments section or drop us a line at takebackourcampus@yahoo.com. We'll post the responses (of course, keeping your identities secret if you'd like) and let our readers vote on the best use of the money. The winning entry will be featured in our upcoming contest.

More Coverage of Take Back Our Campus

Thanks to the Lawsuit, We're Bigger Than Ever

[Editor's Note: For past media coverage of TBOC, check out this link.]

"Ms. Lock responded that the university's response is not a long-term, wise strategy suggesting that blocking the web page is not going to be very effective. Mr. Sullivan noted that it has been very effective so far."-- From the minutes of a 1/20/05 Faculty Council Meeting

It seems that Dr. Lock has been proven correct.

You probably saw News 10's coverage of Saturday's protest in support of free speech and Take Back Our Campus. If you were in the Pennsylvania or West Virgina area recently, you might have caught my radio interview with Rustbelt Radio.

But what's even more fun is that we've had an outpour of support from fellow bloggers, none of whom we even knew existed before they wrote about us. Jayaprakash, a blogger based in India, mentions us in here: http://blog.as2max.com/archives/2005/02/blogs_reach_inc.php

A Canadian blogger's thoughts on SLU and Take Back Our Campus can be found here: http://heartofcanada.typepad.com/randomthoughts/2005/02/campus_protest_.html and http://heartofcanada.typepad.com/randomthoughts/2005/02/administrators_.html. We particularly appreciate the blogger's final comment: "So, in many ways, I suppose the students have already won. Administrators, here's your cue in this scene: exeunt."

A blogger from California mentions us here: http://www.calblog.com/archives/004222.html

SCSUScholars.com mentions us in this posting: http://www.scsuscholars.com/2005_02_01_scsu-scholars_archive.html#110901721379344108.
SCSU notes that FIRE has already won a case similar to ours at UC Santa Barbara.

SCSU also points us to Jeff at Quid Nomen Illius, who writes about us here: http://jvc-comments.blogspot.com/2005/02/by-pouring-their-derision-on-anything.html. Both Quid and SCSUScholars point us to conservative blogger Academy Girl, who supports our right to free speech here: http://academicgame.blogspot.com/2005_02_18_academicgame_archive.html#110874246652991921, writing, "[w]hile I don't support everything for which these students stand (i.e., their politics) or for which they are advocating, I can't help but smile at their bravado in publishing a blog that airs their views about university administration."

A blogger for Salon.com mentioned our exemplary journalism here, but that was back in December, which is approximately 40,000 years in internet-time. [That was also before we were being sued.]

In the category of "why?" can be found these three sites:
Something called the Policy Value Calculator links to the News 10 story about us.

Here: http://www.mp3board.com/comments.html?id=91138

Also, a professor from the University of Delaware links to us as part of his "Information Technology Applications in Marketing" seminar.

We'd like to thank the blogosphere for supporting us in our time of need.

But the biggest thank you goes to President Dan Sullivan for suing us. By filing a federal lawsuit against Take Back Our Campus, we've become international news and our criticisms of the administration are now heard by a wider audience than ever. From us at TBOC to Dan-- thanks for making us famous.