From: technews <technews@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Web Reviews of Professors Prompt a Lawsuit (NY Times on t
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 08:34:12 -0500
October 27, 1999
Web Reviews of Professors Prompt a Lawsuit
By PAMELA MENDELS
An English professor at a large community college in San Francisco has filed
suit to put an end to what he says are malicious postings about him and
other faculty members on a Web site that invites students to criticize
professors.
Daniel Curzon-Brown, a tenured professor at City College of San Francisco
(http://www.ccsf.cc.ca.us/), charged in the suit that Teacher Review
(http://www.teacherreview.com/) has carried statements about him and others
that are false and defamatory, causing emotional distress. The suit says
that the site has published anonymous comments calling professors racist,
incompetent and mentally ill.
The filing of the suit in California State Superior Court signals a new
development in a young phenomenon: the appearance over the last few years of
Web sites featuring evaluations of professors by students.
Teacher Review was created by a City College student, Ryan E. Lathouwers,
who has since transferred to another college. Many students have defended
the site, saying it is a source of useful information about courses. But
Curzon-Brown and other professors have complained that in its young history,
the site has allowed postings that cross the line from free speech to
defamation.
"I can't bear to look at it," Curzon-Brown said in a telephone interview,
referring to some of the comments that students have written about him.
"It's not true. It's not fair. It's not right."
Students say efforts to stifle the site amount to a violation of their right
to air legitimate criticism.
"It's our point that this is a free speech issue," said Bharati Narumanchi,
the student representative on the college's board of trustees. "No one likes
criticism. This site is a way to hold teachers accountable."
The suit, which could be joined by other professors, names several parties,
including Teacher Review, Lathouwers and City College. It says the college
has assisted the site in several ways, among them by allowing links to
Teacher Review from pages on the college Web site. The suit seeks a number
of remedies, including unspecified damages, a ban on the posting of
defamatory comments and the removal of the links.
The college's chancellor, Philip R. Day Jr., who calls some of the comments
on the site "absolutely detestable," said that Teacher Review has presented
college administrators with a knotty issue. He denied that the college has
supported the Web site. Because it is operated by Lathouwers and is hosted
on a private server, there is nothing the college can do to control the
site, he said.
At least four student organizations at City College that have pages hosted
on the college Web site do have links to Teacher Review, and some professors
have called for those links to be removed. But Day argued that to order the
links removed would be as much an incursion on student free speech as an
effort by the administration to interfere with the college newspaper. "It
would bring the issue of freedom of speech, academic freedom, right to the
forefront," he said.
This is not an argument that sits well with Raymond J. Berard, a professor
and president of the college's academic senate. Berard said there have been
some crude sexual comments about teachers on the site. "It's not a question
of free speech, in my judgment," he said.
Colleges commonly survey students on their perceptions of professors.
Generally, however, the results are shared only with the teacher and
supervisors. But surveys by students for students are published for the
whole campus to read. Now some of these student efforts are moving online in
various forms.
Two years ago at Mary Washington College
(http://www.mwc.edu/~dalex9of/guide/guide.htm) in Fredricksburg, Va., for
example, the student government began publishing a Web version of the
student course guide it had initiated a year earlier. And some commercial
sites aimed at college students host areas where students can post teacher
evaluations.
Griffin L. Davis, vice president of marketing at the campus community site
Collegestudent.com (http://www.collegestudent.com/), said the site's course
evaluations are a popular feature, especially during the times of year when
students are selecting courses.
Lathouwers, a 26-year-old computer science student now at San Francisco
State University, said he is paying for Teacher Review himself and does not
run it as a commercial venture. He said he began the site as a service to
students when he was studying at City College, and, after transferring to
San Francisco State University, added a teacher review feature for that
institution, too.
Visitors to the site fill out forms in which they are asked to grade
professors on their performance and to add comments. The reviews, unedited,
then appear on the site. The site also posts a list of guidelines, warning
reviewers to refrain from "slanderous, libelous or malicious material" as
well as "racism, sexism, homophobia or other signs of arrested development."
Lathouwers said if he receives complaints about postings that do not adhere
to those guidelines, he removes them.
But, he said, most postings do adhere to guidelines and are, in his view,
"thoughtful, intelligent reviews." Moreover, he said, students are entitled
to express their opinions about courses, and the site simply provides a
forum for that.
But Curzon-Brown said one problem with the site is that there is no way to
verify whether a review has come from a student who has actually taken a
course with the professor being critiqued. "I call it 'double defamation,'"
Curzon-Brown said.
"There are many things on Teacher Review that are legitimate expressions of
opinion, but false factual allegations are defamation," said Geoffrey Kors,
Curzon-Brown's lawyer. "No one has the right to publish lies that damage an
individual. Free speech has never allowed that."