Dear Mr. Lukianoff:

I have obtained a copy of a letter you sent on November 8 to the Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington on the dispute between my daughter, Rosa Fuller, a senior at UNCW, and a UNCW faculty member, Dr. Mike Adams. I received this letter in consequence of a petition I submitted to the University in accordance with the Public Records Act of the State of North Carolina. I have also read other statements, said to have come from representatives of your foundation, in the Washington Times, US News and the Wilmington Morning Star.

I believe your defense of Dr. Adams, instead of my daughter, is the result of false pretenses, fallacious arguments, and a partisan misrepresentation of the facts. No representative of FIRE has ever contacted my daughter. You have not asked to hear and you have not heard my daughter’s side in this dispute. Why? Does FIRE always choose sides in a dispute on the basis of only some of the facts and the dubious testimony of only one of the interested parties?

Your letter repeats some of the lies and falsifications uttered by Dr. Adams and his few defenders. You impose a radical interpretation on my daughter’s actions and then falsely represent her motives. I invite you to participate with me in a temperate examination of the facts in this case.

You declare, in your letter, that Dr. Adams expressed his "personal disapproval" of Rosa’s statement on the September 11 terrorist assault in an e-mail response he sent her. Name-calling, a primitive argumentum ad hominem, like tomato-throwing and foot-stomping, is certainly a mode of "personal disapproval." But then, on the next page, you insist Dr. Adams’ "role was only to disagree strongly with [Rosa’s] opinions." You conclude that Rosa "seeks to prosecute those who disagree with her." This presentation of the case is absolutely false. Dr. Adams addressed none of the opinions in Rosa’s statement. He offered no criticism of her ideas. He neither agreed nor disagreed with her specific conclusions. He submitted no statement or defense of his own opinions, if he has any. He, as a University professor, instead unprofessionally reviled Rosa, a student, with a series of abusive names. He proposed no argument in support of these names. What did Rosa expect? She wanted and expected a "rational discussion" of the issues, as she said in her letter. She hoped she would receive a vigorous criticism of her ideas from Dr. Adams. She would have welcomed an exchange of antagonistic theories and explanations with him. This is why she sent him a copy of her statement. She well understood that Dr. Adams identifies with the radical right in the Republican Party. She had a course in criminal justice with him last year. Dr. Adams uses the courses he teaches and his University office to display his support of partisan positions and Republican candidates, in violation of professional ethics and the policy of the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina. (This is particularly egregious behavior in a criminal justice professor. The criminal justice system is supposed to enforce the law regardless of partisan political interests.) His office door is plastered with partisan posters and banners. He has a conflict of interest. As a University professor, his primary interest is supposed to be the education of each and every University student. As a political partisan, his interest is the victory of particular candidates and particular policies. He refuses to keep these interests separate. He lets his interest in Republican candidates and ultraconservative policies interfere with his primary responsibilities as an educator. He tries to hide this conflict of interest behind free-speech rhetoric. He evidently has no idea his status in the University puts limitations on his free speech in his relations with his students. His e-mail letter to Rosa exhibits how he lets his partisanship shunt his professional duties aside in favor of his political interests.

Why did Dr. Adams call Rosa abusive names, and offer no criticism of her ideas and no defense of past or current US policies or actions? I believe Rosa rightly said, the "intent of such a message is intimidation and defamation." Dr. Adams’ letter to Rosa violates the most basic principle in the ethics of his profession: put the education of the student first. No University professor should ever write in a letter to a student that her statement is "undeserving of serious consideration," particularly in the case of political discourse. He should either critically evaluate and correct her statement, if possible, or ignore it. A professor should never tell a student her "claimed interest in promoting rational discussion is dishonest." He should enter into a rational discussion with her and rationally correct her ideas, if possible, or keep silent. No professor should ever call a student’s speech "dishonest," "bigoted," "unintelligent," and "immature," unless he also offers an argument in support of each one of these names. A student can learn from arguments, but not from abusive names. A University professor’s primary responsibility is the education of his students. This professional and ethical responsibility puts limits on a professor’s free speech in his relations with each and every student.

What would Rosa have done if Dr. Adams had sent her a "strongly" worded criticism of her ideas, which concluded, on the basis of some argument, that her statement is "unintelligent," "bigoted," and so on? She would have immediately entered into a debate with him. Who is Rosa? She is a 20-year-old senior, a student in the UNCW Honors Scholars Program, with a major in mathematics and a 3.97 grade average. She has already completed her 105-page Honors paper, "Representations of the Rotation Group in Particle Physics." She plans to attend graduate school in philosophy. Both her parents hold doctorates in this area. One of her heroes is Socrates, another target of "free speech" advocates. She first read a Platonic dialogue when she was 12-years old. A Platonist in mathematics and philosophy, she is skilled in the logic of refutation. She has come to believe, and she is not alone in this belief, that Plato’s ideal republic, where philosophy rules, is a socialist society. Rosa is a member of no political group. As you can read in her statement, she is a humanist. She believes the unity of humanity is possible only on the basis of our common rationality. She opposes identity politics, divisive formulations of multiculturalism and the sophistry of postmodernism. She generally opposes speech codes, but understands that the communication of a threat is a crime, and a college teacher is not free to berate a student, with the use of college property, and espouse partisan politics in a college classroom.

You claim Rosa "received a torrent of criticism from students, faculty, and the public for her words" and an "overwhelmingly negative response." Really? Why do you believe this? The fact is the opposite. Of the seventeen faculty members, students and others to whom Rosa originally sent her statement, she received a negative reply from exactly one faculty member, Dr. Adams, and then a few other negative replies from his tiny coterie of present and past College Republicans. When a member of this coterie anonymously sent the entire UNCW faculty and staff a copy of Rosa’s statement, she received exactly one more negative reply: an illiterate, profane and abusive letter from an untenured instructor. Some torrent. Many faculty and staff members who received this anonymous e-mail copy wrote Rosa and praised her courage, intelligence and initiative. You endorse the myth of the "torrent of criticism" in order to falsify Rosa’s motivation when she accused exactly four people, two faculty members and two students, of violations of UNCW policies or criminal statutes. (Note: Rosa filed no charges with either the University or the campus police against "those who disagree with her" and sent her these disagreements in non-abusive and non-threatening communications. How do you fit this fact into your interpretation?)

You insist that the University is guilty of "complicity" with Rosa "in punishing core political speech." This, you rather amusingly add, "should be self-evident." You hope it’s self-evident, because you have no other evidence. Here is my answer: if you can point to any, yes any, "core political speech" in Dr. Adams’ response to Rosa’s statement, or any, yes any, "core political speech" in the responses by Krysten Scott, James Ryan Price or Edwin H. Wagensellar, my daughter will retract all her accusations and send each one of these people and the University an apology. Do you really want us to believe these rants and threats yielded the "failure of [Rosa’s] arguments in free and open discourse"? Rant is not refutation. As Rosa said: "Name-calling is the nullification of discourse." I believe I have called your bluff.

You declare Rosa "has no legitimate legal claim on the basis of intimidation, defamation, false representation, or threats." Rosa never accused Dr. Adams of "threats." On September 20, she complained to the University that Dr. Adams had sent her an abusive e-mail message in violation of the University’s Computing Resource Use Policy, which prohibits the transmission, with the use of the University’s computing facilities and services, of "materials that are libelous or defamatory in nature." Such materials include "information" that infringes on "the rights of another person, that is abusive or threatening, [or] profane." The policy defines "libelous" as "provably false, unprivileged statements that do demonstrated injury to an individual’s . . . reputation." When Dr. Adams first read Rosa’s statement, on the morning of September 17, he immediately contacted the secretary of the North Carolina Federation of College Republicans, a UNCW student named Krysten Scott. He sent her a frantic series of e-mail messages at 9:03 a.m., 9:06 a.m. and 9:11 a.m. We believe Scott then forwarded Rosa’s statement to current and former members of the College Republicans. She likely included either Dr. Adams’ name-calling response or her own threatening response, which she sent Rosa at 9:38 a.m. Dr. Adams sent his abusive e-mail letter to Rosa at 9:45 a.m. He then continued his obsessive contact with Scott with three more e-mail messages at 9:57 a.m., 9:59 a.m. and at 12:33 p.m. We believe these facts indicate that Dr. Adams sent his false representation of Rosa to Scott. We believe Scott then acted on his false representation and sent Rosa an abusive and threatening e-mail communication. After Rosa received the list of e-mail letters Dr. Adams had sent on September 17, she accused Dr. Adams, on October 29, of "libel in violation of the University’s Computing Resource Use Policy." When Dr. Adams "forwarded his [name-calling and defamatory] response to a number of people in his address book" (as his attorney, Charlton L. Allen, wrote in an internet magazine), with the use of the University’s computing facilities, he libeled her. We would welcome the opportunity to prove that Rosa is not "dishonest," "bigoted," "unintelligent," and "immature."

Your assertion that Rosa has no legitimate claim she received threats from two students, Krysten Scott and James Ryan Price, is incompetent. Rosa filed a report with the UNCW campus police on the e-mail threats these students sent her. She wanted these threats on the record. She left it to the professional judgment of the police whether these threats warranted an investigation or any other appropriate police action. The investigating officer decided he should talk with the two students, on the basis of the facts, the law and his own professional judgment. He met with the students and reported to me they exhibited no sign they intended to act on their threats. He therefore decided not to arrest them. But, he said, if they repeated their threats or exhibited any other sign they intended to act on the threats they had made, he would arrest them. You evidently believe such statements as: "you deserve to be dragged down the street by the hair"; you "should be hit by a baseball bat TWICE", amount to "core political speech" and "discussing controversial topics." The professionally competent authorities judged otherwise.

You baldly assert that Rosa’s petition to inspect the e-mail messages Dr. Adams sent to any address, from his University address, with the use of the University’s central computing facilities and services, from September 15 to September 18, as public business, in accordance with the Public Records Law of the State of North Carolina, "cannot be taken seriously and is a perversion of the law." What is your argument? You provide none. As Hegel observed, one assertion is worth as much as another. Dr. Adams, a State employee, used a State-owned computer and a State-owned computing system to send Rosa his abusive e-mail letter. The Public Records Law provides that, with certain exceptions (student records and personnel files), these e-mail communications are public records, subject to public inspection. You do offer a consideration, which you believe should have led to the immediate rebuff of Rosa’s public records petition: she had a bad motivation. You assert: she wanted "to punish students and faculty [members] for exercising their Free Speech rights." The law anticipates this circumvention of its provisions. It provides that "No person requesting to inspect and examine public records, or to obtain copies thereof, shall be required to disclose the purpose or motive for the request" (North Carolina General Statutes: 132-6 [b]). Rosa had no wish to punish any party. She wanted the information she believed she needed to stop the use of the University’s computing system to send her abusive, libelous and threatening e-mail messages.

Did the University violate Dr. Adams’ "right to privacy" when it inspected his e-mail messages? As you are well aware, he has no such right in this case. The North Carolina Public Records Act limits the "right of privacy" in relation to public records and provides no specific exception or exemption in the case of any State employee who uses State facilities to send any "private" or personal communication. The University’s Computer Resource Use Policy explicitly states that "users do not have an expectation of privacy regarding their uses of the system, and the issuance of confidential passwords or specific [e-mail] addresses should not be understood to provide an expectation of privacy." The University provides its "central computing facilities and services for the instructional, research, and administrative computing needs of the university." Therefore, "access to the university’s computing facilities and resources . . . is a privilege," not a right. This privilege carries no right of privacy. The Policy also states, "information contained on UNCW equipment and in UNCW accounts, including e-mail, if ‘made or received pursuant to law or ordinance in connection with the transaction of public business by any agency of North Carolina,’ unless subject to specific statutory exceptions and exemptions, may be subject to inspection under the Public Records Law of the State of North Carolina." The Policy warns every user: your use of a University e-mail address carries no expectation of privacy and your e-mail communications "may be subject to inspection." Every owner and provider of computing systems, every university, government and private business, which provides such systems, has a similar policy. Surely, FIRE would not argue that the owners of computing systems have no property right to limit the "right of privacy" of the users of these systems.

Whose free speech has been threatened in this dispute? Rosa sent an e-mail letter on September 15, to seventeen people, which said the September 11 terrorist assault "was a tragedy for the entire human species" and "deserves from us unequivocal condemnation." She also advocated a "discussion" of the causes of this crime, and pointed to past and present US policies in the Middle East and Central Asia. 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. She then noted that the reactionary terrorist attacks would be used to distract attention from (1) the undemocratic and unconstitutional installation, by the US Supreme Court, of George W. Bush, in the office of US president, and (2) the continuation of the militaristic and imperialistic policies that likely led to the terrorist assault. She ended her statement with this conditional: "If you support open, unbiased, democratic discussion of all the facts, please forward this e-mail to friends and acquaintances both on and off campus." Dr. Adams and a few of his Republican students exhibited no interest in such "core political speech" but reacted with abusive, threatening, profane or libelous e-mail messages, in violation of the law and the University’s Computing Resource Use Policy. The intent of such messages, as Rosa said, is intimidation. It partially worked: Rosa removed her name and address from her statement on a student-sponsored web site; she removed her name and address from the student directory; she removed information on her family members from her web page; she purchased self-defense items; and her friends provided her with a body guard as she moved around campus. Rosa acted to protect her safety when she filed complaints with the University and the campus police. Dr. Adams, on the other hand, with the assistance of FIRE and his attorney, has carried on a national publicity campaign, in newspapers and magazines, on the internet and television, which is supposed to portray him as a conservative martyr in the cause of free speech. Republican students have sent incoherent and semiliterate letters to the student newspaper and an internet magazine, which continue to misrepresent Rosa’s statement, actions and motivations. Whose free speech has been "chilled"? Who has practiced "self-censorship" from a "fear of reprisal for discussing controversial topics"?

Despite the obfuscations in your letter, Rosa’s complaints and the University’s actions have not targeted "protected speech and academic freedom." The communication of a threat is not protected speech. It is a crime. The e-mail communication of abusive epithets, with no supportive argument, aimed at a student by a professor, is not protected by academic freedom. It is a violation of this university’s computing policy. Rosa’s action has chilled the communication of threats and abusive names on her campus. This is hardly "every communication" at UNCW. Academic freedom has no relevance in this case. This freedom has to do with academic pursuits in academic disciplines, not with nonacademic speech.

FIRE has been on the wrong side in this case from the start. On October 1, the Washington Times, on the basis of false information supplied by Dr. Adams and FIRE’s executive director, Thor Halvorssen, reported that Dr. Adams had been charged with "harassment" and "contacted by university police," because he supported US "intervention in Afghanistan" in statements he made "behind closed doors to a female graduate student." This student is supposed to have "complained that [Dr. Adams’] position made her ‘uncomfortable.’" The facts: Dr. Adams was not charged with harassment but with having sent an abusive and libelous e-mail letter to an undergraduate, in violation of professional ethics and the University’s computing policy. He was not contacted by the campus police. He did not state his support of US intervention in Afghanistan. He did not discuss this matter with Rosa behind closed doors. Rosa has not said Dr. Adams’ position on US intervention made her feel "uncomfortable," partly because Dr. Adams has not yet publicly declared his position on this intervention. Both FIRE and Dr. Adams have falsified the facts in this case. Why? The facts defeat Dr. Adams. He needs to turn this case into a story of his harassment by the "tyranny of the touchy-feely," in Mr. Halvorssen’s mordant words. He has to be seen as the victim of politically correct university administrators who "are terrified of being insensitive to certain views or certain minorities." Hence: Rosa is falsely turned into a female graduate student, who has been made to feel uncomfortable, by the words of a male professor, uttered behind closed doors, and who vindictively charges him with (sexual?) harassment.

Dr. Adams caused his attorney, Charlton L. Allen, to publish a similarly fictitious story in an article in an internet magazine (FrontPageMagazine.com) on October 25. Mr. Allen wrote: "Dr. Adams’ simple act of proffering his contrarian view infuriated Rosa and her mother [Dr. Patricia Turrisi, an associate professor of philosophy and director of the UNCW Center for Teaching Excellence]. Their reaction was typical of the militant left when confronted with their own hypocrisy: they attempted to silence the opinions of those who disagree, not unlike the Taliban." I hardly need repeat: Adams’ abusive epithets and the students’ threats are not "opinions." "First," Mr. Allen tells us, "when Rosa received negative feedback from individuals who received Dr. Adams’ forwarded email, she attempted to file charges with the University Police Department, claiming that the often-heated responses created a ‘hostile environment’ that rose to the level of communicating threats." Rosa never used the words "hostile environment," despite Mr. Allen’s quotes. But these words, like the words "harassment" and "uncomfortable," have come to be associated with charges of sexual harassment. Mr. Allen then tells a series of lies, which he surely obtained from the inventive imagination of Dr. Adams, "a source with the university": (1) Mr. Allen falsely claims that Rosa and Dr. Turrisi "have contacted the chair of Dr. Adams’ department and demanded a full investigation of Dr. Adams." This never happened. When Rosa first received e-mail threats, Dr. Turrisi immediately contacted Dr. Adams’ department chair. She asked him to find out what Dr. Adams had sent the threatening students, and whether Dr. Adams would help us stop these threats. This was Dr. Turrisi’s first, last and only involvement in this case. (2) Mr. Allen falsely claims that Dr. Turrisi "maintains that it is her intention to file a lawsuit for defamation and pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, to seek access to Dr. Adams’ correspondence." Dr. Turrisi has never said she intended to sue Dr. Adams. She has never asked to see any of Dr. Adams’ correspondence. (3) Mr. Allen falsely claims that, "several years ago," Dr. Turrisi "demanded the university discipline a colleague who disagreed with her regarding the general statutory principle for several degrees of rape." This also never happened. It is, as I said in a letter to Front Page magazine, a "complete fabrication." But this lie does confront us once more with Dr. Adams’ obsessive fascination with sexual politics. The facts defeat Dr. Adams. Therefore, he and his defenders tell lie after lie.

Dr. Adams appeared on the "fair and balanced" Fox News Channel on November 9. An interviewer asked him what "specifically" he had been "accused of." He answered: "I guess conspiring to hurt someone’s feelings or something like that. I can’t figure it out." Rosa never said Dr. Adams hurt her feelings. I think she finds the idea humorous. Dr. Adams, a criminal justice professor, pretends he cannot understand what Rosa has alleged: namely, (1) he sent her an abusive e-mail letter, with the use of the University’s computing system, and (2) he sent either the same letter or substantially the same letter to at least one other student (who acted on his false representation) and, therefore, libeled Rosa, in violation of the University’s Computing Resource Use Policy. He and his defenders cannot admit this is what he is alleged to have done. They pretend he has been charged with a violation of a politically correct speech code, which protects the "feelings" of some "historically oppressed groups." The UNCW computing policy, on the contrary, equally protects the rights of every individual "person" who rightfully uses the UNCW computing system. Dr. Adams continued his answer on Fox News with this "hypothetical": "If I were a feminist professor and I had offended a male student, is there any chance that the man could have said you hurt my feelings, let me into that feminist professor’s e-mail account. It’s never happened before, and I doubt it would ever happen." (A banner on Dr. Adams’ office door reads: "So You’re a Feminist. Isn’t That Cute.") Dr. Adams believes he is a member of a newly oppressed group: anti-feminist male professors. I fear Rosa has hurt his feelings.

When an interviewer on Fox News mentioned a letter from me, Rosa’s father, Dr. Adams said: "Oh, her father, that’s interesting. Well, she claimed in the original letter, we live in a racist and chauvinist society, why is Daddy speaking for her?" (Note: Rosa never said we live in a racist and chauvinist society. She said, "innocent Arab and Muslim Americans, including children, are being attacked and threatened in the chauvinist, racist fervor stirred by the war-mongering US media.") Evidently, Dr. Adams believes the word "chauvinist" always means male-chauvinist in the feminist sense. He has a one-track mind. Also, he once more proves he has no appreciation of the difference in the status in a university between a professor and a student. He has an attorney "speaking for" him. He refers reporters to FIRE: "Contacted on campus this week, Dr. Adams referred questions to . . . Mr. Halvorssen." (Wilmington Star News, November 3, 2001) Yet he, and his band of College Republicans, believe it is somehow wrong when Rosa’s parents defend her. He said, on Fox News, he regrets he "didn’t unload on" Rosa more than he did. Does he have any idea of his proper role, as a professor, in the University community? It seems not.

On the basis of the facts and refutations set forth in this letter, I, and my daughter, Rosa, ask the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education to switch its support in this dispute from Dr. Adams to Rosa.. We believe FIRE should:

1. Notify Dr. Adams it no longer supports him.
2. Notify the media it has switched its support from Dr. Adams to Rosa. (FIRE should state it understands that abusive, profane, libelous and threatening communications can chill free speech as effectively as any speech code.)
3. Notify UNCW that it understands Dr. Adams violated professional ethics and a legitimate computing use policy when he sent Rosa his abusive e-mail letter. (FIRE should state it understands that professional ethics puts proper limitations on the speech a college professor can use in his communications with his students. FIRE should also state it understands that the owner of a computer system, as a matter of property rights, can properly restrict both the "free speech" and the "right of privacy" of the users of this system.)
4. Notify the UNCW campus police that it understands the investigating officer used appropriate professional judgment when he interviewed the two students who sent Rosa threatening e-mail letters. Also FIRE should notify the UNCW Dean of Students that it understands he exercised proper judgment when he interviewed these same two students.
5. Affirm that Rosa committed no wrong when she filed a police report on the two students who threatened her or when she alleged that these two students and two faculty members violated the University’s computing use policy.
6. Apologize to Rosa for the false information it has supplied the media on the issues and personalities in this case.
7. Repudiate the falsifications, sophistries and fantasies Dr. Adams has proffered in his desperate defense of his professionally irresponsible abuse of a student.

We hope FIRE will execute the actions we have proposed. Its actions and statements heretofore have belied its supposedly nonpartisan defense of individual rights in education. The time has come when FIRE should redress the wrong it has done my daughter in this case.

Sincerely,

Dr. Dennis J. Fuller

Cc: James Leutze, Chancellor

John Cavanaugh, Provost and Vice Chancellor

Harold M. White, Jr., University Counsel

Terrance M. Curran, Dean of Students

Mimi Cunningham, University Relations

Wayne D. Howell, University Police

Franklin L. Block, Board of Trustees

Alfred P. Carlton, Jr., Board of Trustees

Larry J. Dagenhart, Board of Trustees

Margaret B. Dardess, Board of Trustees

Jeff D. Etheridge, Jr., Board of Trustees

Charles D. Evans, Board of Trustees

Lee Brewer Garrett, Board of Trustees

Owen G. Kenan, Board of Trustees

Katherine Bell Moore, Board of Trustees

Harry E. Payne, Jr., Board of Trustees

Linda Upperman Smith, Board of Trustees

Dennis Worley, Board of Trustees

Alan Charles Kors, FIRE, Director

Harvey A. Silverglate, FIRE, Director

Thor L. Halvorssen, FIRE, Executive Director

David Brudnoy, FIRE, Board of Advisors

T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., FIRE, Board of Advisors

Candace de Russy, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Benjamin F. Hammond, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Elizabeth L. Haynes, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Nat Hentoff, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Roy Innis, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Wendy Kaminer, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Woody Kaplan, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Leonard Liggio, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Herbert London, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Michael Meyers, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Daphne Patai, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Virginia Postrel, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Milton Rosenberg, FIRE, Board of Advisors

John R. Searle, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Ricky Silberman, FIRE, Board of Advisors

Christina Hoff Sommers, FIRE, Board of Advisors