The Sable Verity

— Scott Jaschik

On bad days, there are no doubt plenty of professors who have joked about suing students. But it is pretty rare that somebody actually does so. A law professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has — and the ramifications could extend well beyond his dispute.

Richard J. Peltz is suing two students who are involved in the university’s chapter of the Black Law Student Association, the association itself, and another individual who is affiliated with a black lawyers’ group. Peltz charges them with defamation, saying that his comments about affirmative action were used unfairly to accuse him of racism in a way that tarnished his reputation.

Suing students for what they have said about you is rare if not unheard of, but the topic has suddenly come up not only at Little Rock’s law school, but at Dartmouth College. There, a former instructor recently sent several former students e-mail indicating that she was planning a suit. Robert B. Donin, general counsel of the college, issued a statement in which he said: “We have determined that there is no basis for such action, and we have advised the students and faculty members of this.”

Since the suit that has been filed in Arkansas has been reported by The Arkansas Democrat Gazette, students and faculty there have considered the ramifications — but mostly among themselves. There is considerable concern at the university — and some elsewhere — about what it means to open exchange of ideas to have a professor sue his students.

The dispute over Peltz concerns his opposition to affirmative action — and how he expressed it. Complicating matters is that no one who was present when the statements were actually made is discussing them. Those Peltz sued did not respond to messages, and he was willing to e-mail only a very general discussion of what happened. In examples of the defamatory material that were submitted with his suit, however, the view of the black student organization about his actions becomes clear.

In a memo sent to Charles Goldner, dean of the law school, the students accuse Peltz of engaging in a “rant” about affirmative action, of saying that affirmative action helps “unqualified black people,” of displaying a satirical article from The Onion about the death of Rosa Parks, of allowing a student to give “incorrect facts” about a key affirmative action case, of passing out a form on which he asked for students’ name and race and linking this form to grades, and of denigrating black students in a debate about affirmative action, among other charges.

The student memo said that the organization had “no problem with the difference of opinion about affirmative action,” but that Peltz’s actions were “hateful and inciting speech” and were used “to attack and demean the black students in class.”

The black student group demanded that Peltz be “openly reprimanded,” that he be barred from teaching constitutional law “or any other required course where black students would be forced to have him as a professor,” that the university mention in his personnel file that he is unable “to deal fairly with black students,” and that he be required to attend diversity training.

While Peltz in an e-mail said he could not discuss the case in detail, he suggested — as have his supporters — that the accusations that he was unfair to black students were a misrepresentation of his criticism of affirmative action. For example, he said that he was invited by the Black Law Students Association to debate affirmative action and to take the anti- position.

And while not relating this action directly to what is described in the suit, he wrote the following by e-mail about what may be the form asking for students’ race. “Unrelated to the debate and in the ordinary course of my Constitutional Law class in the fall of 2005, I taught the usual and scheduled material on affirmative action. To stimulate discussion, I presented students with an exercise by handing out a adapted version of the form that the Arkansas state government uses to hire personnel. All students were offered credit to participate. Responding to skeptical student questions, I argued in favor of affirmative action. My teaching method spurred a productive class discussion.”

After Peltz filed the suit, he was removed from teaching all required courses — a fact that the university confirmed but declined to explain, saying that it related both to personnel issues and litigation. Goldner, the dean, sent students and professors an e-mail in which he said that “we recognize that an individual is within his or her rights to file claims in our courts. We also take seriously our obligation to provide our students the environment they need in order to receive the best possible education. Part of that obligation includes working to be an institution in which all members — faculty, students, and staff — are free to openly voice opinions and concerns.”

Goldner pledged to continue to work to create a “diverse and inclusive community.”

Jonathan Knight, who handles academic freedom and governance issues for the American Association of University Professors, said he was concerned about the suit — regardless of whether Peltz was unfairly maligned by his students. “A suit like this, as I’m sure the professor knows, can have troubling implications for academic freedom,” Knight said. “When you ask a court to become involved in making judgments about the metes and bounds of free expression on campus, it can be dangerous.” He noted, for example, that legal standards about the free exchange of ideas — some of them unpleasant — “are not co-equal with the standards of the academic community.”

Generally, Knight said that the worries about courts settling such matters are such that professors need to be “thickly armored” when it comes to comments from colleagues or students. If a professor is being unfairly criticized, it is far better for fellow faculty members or a dean to come to his or her defense than for the scholar to go to court, Knight said.

Noting that professors “typically do not restrain themselves” when talking about other professors’ research, Knight said that “when one enters the academic community, it’s with the understanding that lots of things might well be said which cast one in a very unpleasant light.”

A lone Oklahoma U.S. senator has finally dropped his inexplicable opposition to a congressional bill that would created a U.S. Justice Department “cold case unit” to investigate unsolved civil rights crimes.

With White House support, the U.S. House voted 422 to 2 in support in the proposed “Emmett Till Cold Case Bill” - named after the 15-year-old African-American youth from Chicago who was murdered in Money, Miss., in 1955 for whistling at a white woman.

The legislation would authorize $10 million per year over the next 10 years for the Justice Department to revive its crack cold-case unit to prosecute pre-1970 civil rights murders. Read more »

From Black Voices, Black Spin:

 http://www.blackvoices.com/blogs/2008/05/29/jena-6-update/

A melee that left two prison inmates dead was a battle between blacks and American Indians sparked by a spitting incident three days earlier, a prison official said Tuesday.

The two inmates involved in the incident Friday fought in a recreation yard of the Oklahoma State Reformatory Monday afternoon, and the fight quickly grew into a brawl involving convicts with homemade knives, said Jerry Massie, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections.

“It looks like the two inmates initiated a fight, a couple more jumped in and then it broke out into a larger fight,” Massie said. “That’s when it broke down with combatants along racial lines.”

San Quentin State Prison inmate Lexy Good is white, hangs out with whites on the prison exercise yard and must be careful not to associate with blacks and Latinos. No cards, no basketball outside the color lines.

Those are the unwritten inmate rules of prison life. People stick to their own race.

Good, who’s doing a short stretch for receiving stolen property, likes it that way.

“We segregate amongst ourselves because I’d rather hang out with white people, and blacks would rather hang out with people of their own race,” said Good, 33, of Walnut Creek. “Look at suburbia. Look at Oakland. Look at Beverly Hills. People in society self-segregate.”

Soon that may change in the prisons.

San Quentin and 30 or so other state penal facilities are gearing up to carry out a federal court mediation agreement for integrating double cells and ending the use of race as the sole determining factor in making cell assignments.

Men in California’s prisons have long been segregated in cells to quell racial tensions.

But Good, along with California’s other 155,700 male inmates, may soon be forced to live in a 4-by-9-foot cell with an inmate of a different race.

A 1995 lawsuit filed by a black California inmate, Garrison Johnson, said that the California Department of Corrections’ practice of segregating prisoners by race violated his rights. A 2005 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court led to federal court mediation and the agreement that double cells would be desegregated.

While most inmates and correctional officials agree that it is a noble idea, many fear the worst.

“They should be thinking about what kind of war they are going to start,” said a San Quentin inmate who identified himself only as S. Styles, 36, of Vallejo. “It is like putting a cat and a dog in a cell together.”

Lt. Rudy Luna, assistant to the warden at San Quentin, said there is some concern among prison officials about the change because much of the violence is already based around racial gangs.

State mandate

“There is always concern, but that is a rule that has been sent down. There are a lot of times we don’t like what we have to do,” Luna said. “I think we will have a spike in fighting because we have races that don’t get along. If it was up to us, we’d keep it the way it is. But it is a state mandate.”

Among the state’s male inmates, about 28.9 percent are black, 39.3 percent are Latino, 25.9 percent are white, and 5.9 percent are classified as other, according to figures from the state Department of Corrections.

“There are a lot of incidents in prison where you have a group of inmates going against another group of inmates,” said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. “You have these groups aligned along race but it is about control. It is about criminal activities.”

As currently planned, the cell integration will begin July 1 as a pilot project at two prisons - Mule Creek State Prison in Ione (Amador County) and the Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown (Tuolumne County). Next year, the plan calls for integration to begin at other prisons.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/26/MNK610P4C8.DTL

It is exactly 4:40 AM as I type.  I fell asleep early Friday night after an exhausting week.  While I enjoy the favorite pillow and blanket like anyone else, it wasn’t long before I awoke, wide awake at about 1:30.  I turned on the tv and put in National Treasure 2 and made a cup of tea, settling into the couch with the cat and checked the news and my email.  On night’s like this, I’m sure to be up until about 4 or 5, before falling asleep again until the kid’s get up Saturday morning.  By 3:00AM I was rummaging through the fridge and realized; we’re out of milk; store run.  7/11 is 3 quick blocks away.  I leave by ten after 3.  This should take mere minutes…

I am back from 7/11 with a bag of my favorite chips (to go with lunch today), a gallon of milk (nothing worse than the kiddo’s waking you up because there’s no milk for cereal), and a cup of coffee (call me crazy, I prefer Folger’s dark mountain more than anything Starbucks has to offer). 

I was standing at the counter, just pulling my cash out when suddenly, BOOM! followed by something lighting up out of the corner of my eye.  I turned towards the parking lot and, since it was about 3:30 in the morning, try and grasp what I’m looking at.  A green, four door car, is up over the sidewalk next to the street, smashed into some huge metal box that has something to do with electricity, and the sparks that had flown a split second earlier are just fading into the dark cement ground.

It’s an accident, I tell myself, as I step a little bit closer to the door for a better look.  3 doors fly open and 3 people stumble out.  One girl, the driver, is holding her mouth and walking, dazed, towards the 7/11, and I instinctively open the door and wave her over, an turn to the very stunned older gentleman behind the counter and tell him to call 911.  He stared at me so I said it a few more times as I walked out of the store.

This thin rail of a girl is completely stunned, her eyes wide.  She’s startscrying “It’s my grandmother’s car, I need to call my grandmother.”

She walks past me and into the store and looks at the still-stunned man behind the counter; he’s just sort of holding the phone, his mouth open.

She asks to use the phone and says she’s going to call her grandma.  I, of course, being who I am, snatch the phone and say very calmly and assuredly as I dial 911 that she can call her after I call the police.  She gets a little more hysterical but I just walked away.

I’m a grown ass woman with three children.  I certainly did need her permission.  So I called 911.  I don’t know what I said, you know, probably the customary ‘I need an ambulance at such ‘n’ such…3 passengers…green, four door…it crashed into something, I don’t know what, some big mental box of some sort…two females and one male…young…I’m not sure how old…wait, wait, hold on something is wrong with one of the girls, just a second…’

The front passenger, a plump, short girl is on her knees, clutching her chest, tears streaming down her face.  She’s either having an asthma attack or she’s hyperventilating; either way, she can’t breath.  She’s next to the car, which is blaring some sort of obnoxious gangster rap, and ask her if she is okay.  She shakes her head no, and grabs on to me, I mean GRABS onto me, I can feel her fingernails digging into me.

The boy, probably 17 or 18 is hovering, just being loud, asking stupid questions, telling her to calm down.  He was told politely to shut up, and shut up the music in the car too, talking about “that’s my sister I need to know she’s going to be alright, is she going to be alright?”

The driver has been reduced to a puddle of tears as she predicts her young, untimely death at the hands of her grandmother, who has likely just lost her only car.

I get back on the phone with the operator, “You need to send an ambulance, this girl is clinging to me, I don’t think she can breathe”.  She assures me that someone is one the way, but the seconds are ticking by like full minutes, and I wonder, ‘what the hell is taking so long?’

The has more questions for me, but I can’t really focus on anything that she’s saying.  I’m now on the ground, hold this girl who is squeezing the life outta me, breathing in such a way that was beginning to make me really nervous.

The operator asks if any one appears to have been drinking; I answer yes before she’s finished the question; the girl in my arms smelled like cheap beer, and judging by the way the other two looked they’d been enjoying some brew too.  She starts trying to talk, and I tell her not to, that she needs to focus on trying to breathe, and here comes what’s-his-name smacking his trap again, not a single thing helpful to the situation.  I shoo him away once more.

The operator has asked me where we are, what city, the cross streets…I have to look to remember and scold myself silently; why didn’t I know right away, why couldn’t I remember, I’ve lived here for six years!  I finally got my bearings and tell the operator to please hurry, please hurry, and she assures me again that help is on the way.  The girl in my arms is shaking hard and I apologize to the operator; I can’t talk anymore, I have to put the phone down, I’m sorry, I can’t focus on the two things at the same time…I think she said it was fine or something like that.

Probably within a few seconds, in the otherwise silent early morning I hear the familiar sound of the police car as it accelerates towards us, and can then see the red and blue lights as the car rushes up, another behind it.

I tell the two officers, “she’s hyperventilating, or having an asthma attack or something”, and they tell me aid is on the way.

The officers take the driver and the other passenger aside and start doing what they do.  Finally, FINALLY I see the aid car as it pulls around the corner and into the parking lot behind us.  It seems like everything is taking forever.  Two firefighter’s check out the scene. 

They ask if there were any sparks coming from the accident and I tell them yes, when the car hit there was a big burst of sparks, but none since.  They give a glance to the passenger and the driver and then focus in on the girl in my arms.

Suddenly a shot’s fired call comes over the police radio and one of the officers jumps in his car and speeds off.  Within seconds, two more cars fly past.  I’m thinking to myself ‘what. the. hell.’

The remaining officer puts the driver through a field sobriety test but does not (at least at that point) arrest her.  She’s begging for her mother, and he’s trying to figure out how to deal with the situation; the apartments are a mile, maybe a mile and a half away. 

Meanwhile, the firefighters are still wokingon the other girl, now being referred to as “Lucky”, who also has pretty bad neck and back pain. 

She just can’t stop crying, it doesn’t matter what anyone says.  Lucky says that she is scared, she doesn’t want to go to the hospital, and I tell her, ‘you’re going.’  She begs me to come with her, and I tell her remorsefullythat I cannot.

Finally she is strapped to a board, her neck stationary, her breathing almost under control.  I step away, and I think at that point took the phone back inside and set it on the counter.

The officer seems to think that having the mother at the scene is a good idea, but he can’t leave, and other officers in the area are busy with the shots fired call (I’m thinkin’ to myself, is this what the hell happens after hours in my tired little city?)

Again, I raise my hand.  “I can go get them,” I say, pointing to the male passenger, “if he can come with me and show me where they live.”

The officer agrees, and I waive the kid to my KIA mini van parked in front of the store.  We get in and pull out of the parking lot just as the ambulance is arriving.

He starts talking.  Again.  He doesn’t know what happened, one minute they were driving, he was in the back seat-

“Shush it,” I say.  “Do you have any idea how much shit you are in?”  I look over as he shrinks against the seat.  “You’ve all been drinking-”

“We were just at their house,” he stammers, “we just came to the store to get a cigar”.

“That was where you blew it.  You got in the damn car.”

“Man,” he says, “my mom would be getting in my ass right now if she knew what just went down.”

“Then allow me,” I say, speeding (but not recklessly) down the street, “you could all be dead.  You could have hurt someone else.”

“We didn’t have that much.”

“It doesn’t take that much,” I snapped, “did you see how thin that girl is, the one who was driving?  She probably weighs 98 pounds.  She could get drunk off of a SIP.  Do you have any idea the lesson you’ve just been given?” Dear God.  I have become my mother.  “Do you have any idea how fortunate you are?”  He doesn’t say much more because he doesn’t have anything to say for himself.  “What the fuck is wrong with you?  Why don’t you just think on that?  It’s three in the morning and you’ve been drinking.  You’re not legal, I can tell by looking at you.”  He directs me on to the apartments and we wind our way through the darkened buildings until we find ‘P’.  I leave the car running and he comes with me.  I take the steps two at a time and start banging on the door as loud as I can;  I feel bad but shit, what else am I supposed to do.

Almost immediately the door the apartment next door flies open and a none too happy sista is staring down her nose at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.  I keep banging on the door and the boy tells her why we’re there.  In turn, he starts banging too.  Now I’ve got the punk ass fool from the back seat of the car and the nosey ass ‘I’m gunna be a part of this’ on either side of me.

Finally the door opens, and a very toothless, very tired looking older woman opens the door dressed in a nightgown.  I apologize for the lateness of the hour and for banging on her door, but tell her that I need her ot come with me now, right now.  Next, her daughter, the driver’s mother, stumbles out into the living room, squinting heavily at the light pouring in from behind me.  Her mother tells her that the girls have been in an accident, and they both remark that the girls were just at the apartment…I’m starting to wonder of the car was taken without permission.  I turn to the boy and tell him to go back to the car, and not to get in the front seat, get all the way in the back.  He does as he is told without a word.

The women get pants on under teir night gowns, throw on jackets and shoes, grab purses and keys, and we’re back in the car.

Within 5 minutes we’re back to the scene; the ambulance is just pulling out for the hospital.  I remark to the women that one of their girls is in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

We turn on the green arrow and pull into the parking lot.  As we pull into the parking spot, the grandmother sees her car and pretty much goes off, and the neighbor and the mother behind me are also shocked at the sight of the car; I urge them to quiet down, calm down, before they get out of the car, and the do.  As soon as the drive sees us, she is returned to tears, sitting on the curb, holding herself tight.

I walk back into the 7/11 on auto-pilot at this point, and my items are still on the counter.  The man scanned each of them as he remarked something about God, and saving lives, and how amazing he thought it was that I’d just arrived at the store, and was just about to leave, and on and on.  I pay, get my change and leave. 

I walk back over to the group and tell the officer that I need to go home, I won’t be able to take anyone to the hospital, and he nods, thanks me for my help and I turn to leave.

“Wait a minute,” the nosey neighbor says, “you’re not his mother?”  She’s pointing to the boy, looking at me.  He’s black, as am I, while the two girls are white.

“No,” he says, as I shake my head in agreement.

“Well who are you?” nosey neighbor wants to know.

“I was getting some coffee,” I say pointing to the store.

“So, you don’t know these people?” she asks.

“No ma’am,” I say, “you all take care.”

….

I came home to find the cat at the door, as she usually is if I make a late night run, and put my purchases away.  She followed me to the couch, sniffing the strange scents I now carried from the 10 or so people I’d unexpectedly come into contact with over the past hour or so.

And here I am, sharing it with you because it’s too early to call anyone else and tell them about it.  When my kids get up, I’m going to tell them about it too..

by Harvey Wasserman