The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • Bloggers Beware: Lessons from the Crystal Cox Case

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    Ruth Carter

    (cc) MonsieurLui from Flickr

    Many of us got into blogging because we like having a proverbial soapbox we can jump on to share our thoughts with the universe. The recent Crystal Cox case has made me wonder how many bloggers know the legal risk they take when they share their views.

    For those of you who missed it, Crystal Cox is an “investigative blogger” in Montana who writes a blog called Bankruptcy Corruption. In one of her posts, she called Kevin Padrick, an attorney in Oregon, “a thug, a thief, and a liar.” Padrick sued Cox for defamation and won . . . $2.5 million!

    The interesting thing for bloggers to note is that Cox lives and writes in Montana but she was sued in Oregon and Oregon law applied to the case.

    If you write about other people, you open yourself up to the possibility of being sued for defamation or invasion of privacy. These cases are generally based on state laws. The good news is that there isn’t much variation between the laws. The bad news is that there are exceptions.

    The really bad news is that the person who claims to have been injured by your blog gets to sue you in the state where they were injured, which is usually their home state. And it’s their home state law that applies. So, if you’re a blogger in Mississippi, and you write about someone in Alaska, and they sue you for defamation, you have to go to Alaska to defend yourself and hire an attorney who can defend you in Alaska. (Another lesson from the Crystal Cox case: don’t be your own attorney!)

    Let’s look at the shield law, one of the laws Cox tried to use to defend herself. This is the law journalists invoke to prevent a court from forcing them to reveal an information source. There isn’t one national shield law. There are 40 different state shield laws, and some states don’t have a shield law. Cox tried to use the shield law to defend herself; and in another state, her argument may have held water. But unfortunately for her, the Oregon shield law specifically states that you can’t use the law as a defense in a civil defamation case.

    Another challenge surrounding the legalities of blogging is that sometimes the laws are old, really old, as in the-internet-wasn’t-invented-when-the-law-was-written old. In a lot of these cases, the court has to decide how the laws apply to these new situations didn’t exist before we had the internet. You and the other side can propose your interpretation of the law, but there’s no guarantee that the court will accept your interpretation. And you might get really lucky and get a judge who barely knows how to turn on their computer and has no concept of what a blog is.

    Someday the laws will be updated to account for the internet and blogging practices. Even when that happens, we will still have to be conscientious of the fact that each state has its own laws, and that we run the risk of being sued in any of the 50 states depending on who and what we write about.

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  • Porn Stars Can Be Effective Teachers

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    Ruth Carter

    Kevin Hogan is the head of the English department and the crew coach at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Massachusetts. He’s on paid leave after he was ambushed by Mike Beaudet of Fox 25 News in Boston with photographs from his performances in pornographic films that were released last year.  

    Hogan appears to be well-respected by his students and their parents. It’s understandable that parents would be surprised to learn about Hogan’s past, but once the initial shock wears off, will they care that a teacher has participated in porn? As long as he doesn’t discuss his past in porn in the classroom, I don’t think his previous work should be an issue.

    Image by coolhunting "tapas" via Flickr

    Being an adult film actor is not illegal as long as it is produced legally and it appears that Hogan participated in these films before accepting the position at Mystic Valley. If Hogan acted in a film after becoming a Mystic Valley teacher and his teaching contract forbid him from working in adult entertainment, then there would be a case for firing him for violating his contract. If all his contract has is a clause that prohibits “immoral behavior” during employment, that shouldn’t be enough to fire him. A blanket clause like that allows too much room for interpretation.

    The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is investigating this situation. Its spokesman said, “We expect teachers to hold a very high moral standard. They are role models for students.”

    Let’s break this down. Can you have high moral standards and have sex? Have gay sex? Have sex while being filmed? Have sex while being filmed and get paid for it? Have sex while being filmed, get paid for it, and allow it to be available for public consumption? The adult entertainment industry is stigmatized, but participating in it does not mean that you are an immoral person.

    The next argument is always that teachers are role models for students. Being a former or current porn star does not threaten the health or safety of any student. It might give the teacher a reputation that they have to manage, but it doesn’t interfere with their ability to teach.

    Moreover, teachers do lots of things that I’m sure parents don’t want their children emulating. Should we fire any teacher that has engaged in any act that parents dislike? If parents and schools are so concerned about having teachers who are exceptional role models for students, then they would fire every teacher who smokes, is bad at managing their finances, is obese, is a weekend binge drinker, and every teacher who has ever gotten a speeding ticket or driven while talking on their cell phone.

    One of my totally awesome liberal friends is studying to be a teacher. She said, “Doing gay porn while teaching is unacceptable . . . . Pornography and teaching do not mix, no exceptions.” While I respect that some people think that there’s no place for a porn star in the classroom, I disagree. I’m not a parent, but if I were, I’d let my child be taught by a good teacher who happened to do porn as long as they kept their porn life out of the classroom.

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  • First Amendment Shouldn’t Protect Homophobia in Schools

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    Ruth Carter

    It’s distressing to hear that students are being permitted to wear t-shirts with homophobic messages on them at school. This issue has come up a few times in the past year. In one situation, judge said it was ok for a student to wear a shirt that said, “Be Happy, Not Gay” because a school didn’t have the right to prevent a student from expressing their beliefs. At another school, students were not disciplined when they came to school wearing shirts that said “Straight Pride” on the front and a verse from Leviticus on the back: “If a man lay with a male as those who lay with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and shall surely be put to DEATH.”

    May_Media- Visual
    Image by NIST2018 via Flickr

    Now, I’m a huge supporter of the First Amendment. Tinker v. Des Moines School District says that your constitutional right to free speech doesn’t end when you enter the school property, and I think that’s true. It’s perfectly fine to have your beliefs, but there must be limitations on how you’re allowed to express them.

    There are also needs to be a line drawn between Tinker and these anti-gay t-shirt cases. In Tinker, the students wore black armbands as a symbol that they were against the Vietnam War. They were expressing their political view. They weren’t discriminating against anyone. Their armbands probably didn’t create a hostile learning environment. A shirt that says all homosexuals should be killed does.

    If a school permits students to wear “Gay Pride” shirts then students should be allowed to wear “Straight Pride” shirts. The students should have been disciplined because they wore shirts that called for killing of homosexuals! There wouldn’t have been any discussion if these students had shown up to school in shirts that promoted the KKK, said that women were the lesser sex, or displayed the Nazi flag. No one would have been allowed to wear any of these shirts because “it sparked a conversation.” Discipline would have been swift and automatic.

    Too often, people are using the right to religious freedom to promote homophobia, and schools are accepting this crap argument. School administrators should not tolerate any type of discrimination on school grounds. They can respect that students have a right to their religious beliefs (even closed-minded beliefs) without giving them so much freedom of expression that they allow these bigoted students to interfere with other students’ ability to learn. There’s a huge difference between allowing a student to have their beliefs and putting limits on how they are allowed to express it in the classroom. It is unacceptable for schools to use religious freedom as an excuse for allowing LGBT students to be bullied in the classroom.

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