Tweet
FEDERAL APPEALS COURT REJECTS SUIT OVER U. OF MINNESOTA WEBSITE
Scott Jaschik
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/04/federal-appeals-court-rejects
May 4, 2012
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday [1] that the University of
Minnesota could not be sued because the website of one of its research
centers had labeled another website "unreliable."
The statements made by the University of Minnesota website were
protected legally -- either by being true or by being opinion -- said
the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The
website that prompted the suit is run by the Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies at Minnesota. Scholars there, consistent with
the consensus view of historians of genocide, include the slaughter
of Armenians during World War I as a case of genocide. The suit
challenged the right of the center to label as "unreliable" a website
of the Turkish Coalition of America that cast doubt on whether the
Armenians experienced a genocide.
Not surprisingly, the case has been closely followed by historians of
that period in history. But the case has also been tracked by scholars
concerned about academic freedom generally, some of whom worried that a
dangerous precedent could have been set by a suit against an academic
center for expressing its views on areas of scholarship. The Middle
East Studies Association, for example, has called [2]on the Turkish
Coalition of American to withdraw the suit.
"We fear that legal action of this kind may have a chilling effect
on the ability of scholars and academic institutions to carry out
their work freely and to have their work assessed on its merits,
in conformity with standards and procedures long established in the
world of scholarship," said a statement from the group.
An irony of the case is that the label of "unreliable" was removed from
the Minnesota website -- at about the time the Turkish coalition was
criticizing it but before the suit was filed in 2010. [3] Minnesota
officials said that they didn't want to send anyone to the websites
that cast doubt on the Armenian genocide, so they removed the list
of "unreliable" websites from a webpage with teaching and research
links. However, the university has defended the right of the research
center to have had the list up in the first place, and most of the
appeals court decision is written as if Minnesota still had such
a link.
Last year, a federal district court ruled that academic freedom
protected the Minnesota website, [4] but the Turkish coalition
appealed, setting up Thursday's ruling.
The appeals court rejected arguments in the appeal by the Turkish
coalition that the university violated its First Amendment rights and
defamed it by identifying the coalition's website as unreliable. A
central argument by the coalition was that students at the university
would be denied access to the coalition's ideas, and thus that the free
exchange of ideas was hindered when a center at a public university
labeled the website unreliable.
On the First Amendment issue, the Turkish coalition cited court rulings
in which, for example, secondary schools were found to be violating
First Amendment rights of students by removing certain books from
the library. The appeals court noted that those cases were based on
blocking access to information -- something that the court said the
University of Minnesota never did.
"There is no allegation that the defendants impaired students' access
to the TCA website on a university-provided Internet system," the
appeals court's decision says. "There is no hint in the complaint
that university students were not free to, for example, read the
TCA website, e-mail material from the TCA website to their friends,
regale passers-by on the sidewalk with quotes from the TCA website,
and so forth. In short, TCA's website was not 'removed' from the
university in any sense."
The Turkish coalition's appeal argued that the Minnesota website
defamed the coalition by saying it engages in "denial" of the Armenian
genocide, by calling it "unreliable," by saying that it features a
"strange mix of fact and opinion," and that it is "an illegitimate
source of information."
The coalition argued that by labeling its website a "denial" website,
the Minnesota center was maligning it because the term "denial," in the
context of the study of genocide, "implies denial of well-documented
underlying facts associated with a genocidal event."
The appeals court ruling, however, says that the issue here is whether
the coalition denies the Armenian genocide. "Because the TCA website
does, in fact, state that it is 'highly unlikely that a genocide charge
could be sustained against the Ottoman government or its successor'
based on the historical evidence, the center's statement under this
interpretation is true and, thus, still not actionable," the appeals
court decision says.
"The remaining three statements can be interpreted reasonably only as
subjective opinions, rather than facts," the opinion adds, rejecting
the defamation charges there as well.
A lawyer for the Turkish coalition did not respond to a request
for comment.
Scott Jaschik
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/04/federal-appeals-court-rejects
May 4, 2012
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday [1] that the University of
Minnesota could not be sued because the website of one of its research
centers had labeled another website "unreliable."
The statements made by the University of Minnesota website were
protected legally -- either by being true or by being opinion -- said
the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The
website that prompted the suit is run by the Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies at Minnesota. Scholars there, consistent with
the consensus view of historians of genocide, include the slaughter
of Armenians during World War I as a case of genocide. The suit
challenged the right of the center to label as "unreliable" a website
of the Turkish Coalition of America that cast doubt on whether the
Armenians experienced a genocide.
Not surprisingly, the case has been closely followed by historians of
that period in history. But the case has also been tracked by scholars
concerned about academic freedom generally, some of whom worried that a
dangerous precedent could have been set by a suit against an academic
center for expressing its views on areas of scholarship. The Middle
East Studies Association, for example, has called [2]on the Turkish
Coalition of American to withdraw the suit.
"We fear that legal action of this kind may have a chilling effect
on the ability of scholars and academic institutions to carry out
their work freely and to have their work assessed on its merits,
in conformity with standards and procedures long established in the
world of scholarship," said a statement from the group.
An irony of the case is that the label of "unreliable" was removed from
the Minnesota website -- at about the time the Turkish coalition was
criticizing it but before the suit was filed in 2010. [3] Minnesota
officials said that they didn't want to send anyone to the websites
that cast doubt on the Armenian genocide, so they removed the list
of "unreliable" websites from a webpage with teaching and research
links. However, the university has defended the right of the research
center to have had the list up in the first place, and most of the
appeals court decision is written as if Minnesota still had such
a link.
Last year, a federal district court ruled that academic freedom
protected the Minnesota website, [4] but the Turkish coalition
appealed, setting up Thursday's ruling.
The appeals court rejected arguments in the appeal by the Turkish
coalition that the university violated its First Amendment rights and
defamed it by identifying the coalition's website as unreliable. A
central argument by the coalition was that students at the university
would be denied access to the coalition's ideas, and thus that the free
exchange of ideas was hindered when a center at a public university
labeled the website unreliable.
On the First Amendment issue, the Turkish coalition cited court rulings
in which, for example, secondary schools were found to be violating
First Amendment rights of students by removing certain books from
the library. The appeals court noted that those cases were based on
blocking access to information -- something that the court said the
University of Minnesota never did.
"There is no allegation that the defendants impaired students' access
to the TCA website on a university-provided Internet system," the
appeals court's decision says. "There is no hint in the complaint
that university students were not free to, for example, read the
TCA website, e-mail material from the TCA website to their friends,
regale passers-by on the sidewalk with quotes from the TCA website,
and so forth. In short, TCA's website was not 'removed' from the
university in any sense."
The Turkish coalition's appeal argued that the Minnesota website
defamed the coalition by saying it engages in "denial" of the Armenian
genocide, by calling it "unreliable," by saying that it features a
"strange mix of fact and opinion," and that it is "an illegitimate
source of information."
The coalition argued that by labeling its website a "denial" website,
the Minnesota center was maligning it because the term "denial," in the
context of the study of genocide, "implies denial of well-documented
underlying facts associated with a genocidal event."
The appeals court ruling, however, says that the issue here is whether
the coalition denies the Armenian genocide. "Because the TCA website
does, in fact, state that it is 'highly unlikely that a genocide charge
could be sustained against the Ottoman government or its successor'
based on the historical evidence, the center's statement under this
interpretation is true and, thus, still not actionable," the appeals
court decision says.
"The remaining three statements can be interpreted reasonably only as
subjective opinions, rather than facts," the opinion adds, rejecting
the defamation charges there as well.
A lawyer for the Turkish coalition did not respond to a request
for comment.