My daughter, Rosa Fuller, a student at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, has referred the e-mail communication you sent her to me. She has appointed me to act as her representative in all matters that have to do with her dispute with UNCW Prof. Mike Adams, another faculty member and two students.

I suppose your current interest in this case is the result of the article that appeared today on the web site of the so-called Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). This article is false in every respect, and the partisan FIRE directors know it to be false.

The FIRE web site has a link to the letter FIRE sent UNCW Chancellor Leutze. The article mentions that Chancellor Leutze has not yet replied to this letter. What the article fails to mention is that, on November 26, I sent FIRE an eight-page reply in which I refuted every aspect of the position FIRE has taken on this case. I have attached a copy of this letter. Greg Lukianoff, the author of the FIRE letter, sent me a reply to my letter 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" in the e-mail communications mentioned in her complaints. Lukianoff illogically and ungrammatically claims "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 have not yet sent FIRE a response to this letter. I shall do so after Christmas.

FIRE has focused its attention on my daughter’s request to see some of Dr. Adams’ e-mail letters as public business in accordance with the Public Records Act of the State of North Carolina. The FIRE article claims her demands have been "irrational" and "senseless." I shall send you copies of the letters she sent to the University, which defend her public records request. I think you will find them neither irrational nor senseless. We believe the Public Records Act acknowledges a democratic right that belongs to every citizen in North Carolina. The FIRE article doesn’t even mention this Act. Behind the façade 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, when these employees do the public’s business.

The article also repeats the claim, which FIRE knows to be false, that my daughter plans to sue Dr. Adams. She has never uttered any such intention.

If you wish any further information on this case, you can contact me at my e-mail address, which I check every day, or phone me at []. I shall send you e-mail copies of my daughter’s three complaints to the University, her three letters to the University attorney, my November 26 letter to FIRE, and my December 13 letter to a member of the FIRE Board of Advisors.

Dr. Dennis Fuller