I contacted the so-called Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) on November 26 and explained why it should not defend Dr. Adams in this case. I have attached a copy of my letter. Greg Lukianoff, the author of the FIRE letter, sent me a reply on December 3. His reply turns on a sophistic interpretation of the phrase: "core political speech." I said my daughter would retract her accusations if FIRE could point to any "core political speech" (a phrase used by Mr. Lukianoff in his letter to the UNCW administration) in the e-mail communications mentioned in her complaints. Lukianoff illogically and ungrammatically claimed "core political speech" means speech that is core because it is political in some sense, and not political speech that is core because it addresses core issues. I also said, in my letter to FIRE, that Dr. Adams violated the "most basic principle in the ethics of his profession: put the education of the student first." Mr. Lukianoff, in his reply, claimed that the professional ethics of a university professor is a matter of "teaching style." Calling a student abusive names, libeling and inciting threats against her is a teaching style? I have taught philosophy at a number of universities. My wife, Rosa's mother, is currently a UNCW professor of philosophy and director of the University's Center for Teaching Excellence. We immediately saw Dr. Adams' abusive letter to Rosa as a violation of professional ethics. Mr. Lukianoff said he would not comment on "these extremely subjective issues" and would not "adjudicate teaching styles." Ethics, in his opinion, is a "style" and a matter of "subjective" choice in the "marketplace of ideas." This fits with his claim that definitions of rationality are "arbitrary." He denies that ethics, which includes professional ethics, can have a rational foundation. FIRE claims to oppose postmodernist and multiculturalist speech codes. But Mr. Lukianoff's letter shares the antirationalist, subjectivist and moral relativist presuppositions of these speech-code advocates.

FIRE has recently focused its attention on my daughter's request to see some of Dr. Adams' e-mail letters as public business under the Public Records Law of the State of North Carolina. Behind the facade of a defense of free speech, FIRE has entered on a campaign to deny the public its democratic right to hear the speech of its public employees. The right to hear such speech is a free speech right. The North Carolina Public Records Law provides that the "public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people." It further declares: "it is the policy of this State that the people may obtain copies of their public records and public information free or at minimal cost unless otherwise specifically provided by law." Dr. Adams, a state employee, sent my daughter his libelous e-mail letter from a state-owned e-mail address with the use of a state-owned computer and state-owned computing facilities. Such e-mail letters are the property of the people of this state.

FIRE continues to publish lies about my daughter. The articles it recently posted on its web site falsely state that my daughter "blamed the United States" for the terrorist attacks on September 11. Rosa wrote that the terrorist assault "was a tragedy for the entire human species" and "deserves from us unequivocal condemnation." She blamed the terrorists when she referred to the "summary murder" of the victims as an "irrational act that can only serve the cause of irrationality." She also blamed reactionary US policies, which have financed, trained and armed socially and politically reactionary forces, such as the Afghan "freedom fighters" and the Taliban. Why does FIRE lie? FIRE also claims my daughter demanded to see some of Dr. Adams' e-mail letters "so that she could sue him for libel." This is false and FIRE knows it to be false. Why does FIRE lie? I think my letter to FIRE explains why it has lied about this case from the start.