Great article. I wondered when people smeared by the woke would turn to libel laws for justice.
I’d love to read a more in-depth article by a lawyer describing potential application of libel/defamation laws in the US and the UK to unfounded accusations of racism and the like, and also the application of any other relevant laws such as those relating to intentional infliction of economic harm.
I’d also like to know why individuals making these false accusations were not sued in addition to Oberlin–I suppose one answer is they had no money to pay damages.
Easily the most disturbing paragraph in this article is:
“Witnesses confirmed that Meredith Raimondo, the vice-president and dean of students, had distributed flyers which repeated the libel, and actively participated in the protests. She even ordered the college cafeteria to stop buying products from the bakery in an effort to coerce them into dropping the shoplifting charges. Students were excused from classes to attend the protests, refreshments were provided by college officials, and photocopies of the flyers were made by Oberlin’s administration office.”
How can a senior college administrator possibly believe such actions were appropriate?
Oh, and thanks to the author for a great laugh:
“When the academic and philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers gave a talk at the college, students were so upset by her opinions that they retreated en masse to a “safe room” with a therapy dog.“
It’s disconcerting how many students haven’t grown (emotionally) beyond primary age. I find it deeply troubling that universities are not only accepting but enabling this depth of immaturity!
Universities are now much more clearly commercial enterprises, chasing greater numbers of attendees for their money. You cast the net wider and you pull in a bigger bycatch.
Plus as (many) universities are Left inclined, they share the myth that people are already impeccable as they are.
As an 18-19 yr old student in the late 1970s I was idealistic and wet behind the ears but I never thought the world owed me anything or that I’d be offended by something I didn’t like or disagreed with. I just disagreed with it! And how could I disagree with it if it had been cancelled?
Two reasons for this. So many parents were/are bri going their children up without sound boundaries. An example from my own family, my youngest brother and his wife decided that their children would set their own boundaries and make their own norms. Result. Two young adults who went through school bullying other children and who can’t actually think for themselves without “checking” with Mum and Dad. The other is that there are few technical colleges and all young adults have to go to university,which is not the place for the majority who should be learning trades. At university they think tbey are entitled and nobody disillusions them.
Claudia Webbe is no longer a Labour MP. She is an independent having had the whip suspended after being found guilty of, ironically, harassment and given a suspended sentence of 10 weeks in prison.
Trevor Q
2 years ago
‘When I use a word’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is’ said Alice ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is’ said Humpty Dumpty ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’
Tom Lewis
2 years ago
“ the term “fascism” traditionally connotes an authoritarian movement based on an extreme form of nationalism combined with claims of racial purity and a militaristic repression of dissent”
It seems that this term needs to be updated to – An authoritarian movement based on an extreme form of ideology combined with claims of being on the right side of history and a militant repression of debate or dissent. Or, as we say in Scotland, the SNP !
Fascists also need an external group to scapegoat for any perceived disadvantages they believe they suffer. For the Nazis it was the Jews, for the SNP, the English.
So your solution to leftwing smear campaigns is to expand the oldest smear campaign of liberal-left politics, branding people a “fascist?”
Stalin would be proud of you.
We need to return to the definition by Gentile which I think is ” Everything in the state , everything for the state and nothing against the state”. Fascism comes out 19th century Syndicalism and is basically ant- Catholic and aristocratic. Giovanni Gentile – Wikipedia
Brian Villanueva
2 years ago
“It has also made it difficult to identify real fascists and racists because the words have been downgraded to indiscriminate terms of abuse.”
The postmodernists’ constant twisting of language make it impossible to talk about anything. 40 years ago we started debating the meaning of “baby”. 10 years ago we were debating the meaning of “marriage”. Today we’re debating the meaning of “woman” How long before we start debating the meaning of “human”?
The same impetus that makes someone willing to libel and bankrupt a politically different person will, eventually, lead to imprisonment or worse. Once a portion of your society has been officially determined to be “not human”, it’s only a matter of time before you start hurting them.
Animals have human rights too, as I have been told by young people who I thought had more sense but have been brainwashed by organisation s who are happy to take money from the public purse but spout rubbish.
Cabbages have rights too. And many cabbages are admitted to universities.
Malcolm Knott
2 years ago
Defamation is bedevilled by the prohibitive level of legal costs. For most people, launching a libel action, or defending one, puts their entire fortune at risk. Costs are high because damages are high; big money is involved and that means expensive legal teams fighting for big stakes. In the result, many libels go unpunished and many true stories are stifled.
One way to deal with this might be to remove the right to damages while enhancing the right to demand correction. So, for example, if the BBC libelled Cliff Richard for 12 minutes in an evening news bulletin, the court could order that the first 12 minutes of three consecutive news bulletins be devoted to a blank screen carrying an apology and correction.
The problem with this your suggestion is that a libel can have severe financial consequences that may not be compensated for by a retraction. Obtaining professional insurance is one way of reducing the risk involved in costs. The downside always remains that the law of libel tends to shield the reputations of wealthy but dodgy individuals like Robert Maxwell and Jimmy Savile where proving their unsavoury activity is costly and difficult.
I agree, and I would allow compensation for direct and indirect financial loss, supported by evidence. However, I would not award damages for non-financial loss, such as injured feelings, indignation or anger, however well-deserved. I say this simply because I think damages-driven legal costs have spiralled out of control.
Of course, there may be cases where financial loss does not arise. I don’t suppose, for example, that J. K. Rowling will suffer any financial loss from the stupid and untrue things that have been said about her and I would not (for the reasons I have explained) award her damages for injured feelings. But I would require those who have slandered her to retract in the most public, unequivocal and humiliating way – and pay her legal costs.
I also agree that bullies can and do use the law of defamation to shield their dodgy reputations. Perhaps threatening a lawsuit to suppress the truth should be punishable as contempt of court, or indeed as a criminal offence?
These are knotty problems, with no easy solutions.
Lou Campbell
2 years ago
How sad that both the owners died before they were vindicated.
Michael James
2 years ago
The opposite can also be a problem, when people try to silence accurate critical comment by labelling it a ‘smear’, as when Rishi Sunak complained that his critics had ‘smeared’ his wife in order to get at him.
But a smear can also be true – Rishi isn’t denying his wife’s former tax status, just complaining about the way the information came out.
This article is about slander, liable and untruths, not uncomfortable facts
I think Andrew Doyle in this article is clearly using ‘smear’ to mean deliberate and malicious lies, which is the correct usage. If all unwelcome comment can be deflected by being called a ‘smear’ it becomes even harder than it already is for public debate to get anywhere.
I agree with the others who have replied and would add that intent is also pertinent. If the person making public the non-dom status of Akshata Murty was motivated by the knowledge that such revelations would damage Rishi Sunak in the eyes of the public, then, however true the information is, that’s a smear.
Jason Highley
2 years ago
Very nice read. I’m going to look more into this now.
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
I imagine the legal term ‘reasonable’ that you’d need in a law about free speech depends on a reasonable consensus across a population. Siloism and identitarianism leaves no room for this so the commentariat will have to continue like Kilkenny cats in a bag of their own making. Not sure folk working their backsides off in physically demanding jobs from bin guys to factory workers to sewer engineers give a damn.
Great article. I wondered when people smeared by the woke would turn to libel laws for justice.
I’d love to read a more in-depth article by a lawyer describing potential application of libel/defamation laws in the US and the UK to unfounded accusations of racism and the like, and also the application of any other relevant laws such as those relating to intentional infliction of economic harm.
I’d also like to know why individuals making these false accusations were not sued in addition to Oberlin–I suppose one answer is they had no money to pay damages.
Easily the most disturbing paragraph in this article is:
“Witnesses confirmed that Meredith Raimondo, the vice-president and dean of students, had distributed flyers which repeated the libel, and actively participated in the protests. She even ordered the college cafeteria to stop buying products from the bakery in an effort to coerce them into dropping the shoplifting charges. Students were excused from classes to attend the protests, refreshments were provided by college officials, and photocopies of the flyers were made by Oberlin’s administration office.”
How can a senior college administrator possibly believe such actions were appropriate?
Oh, and thanks to the author for a great laugh:
“When the academic and philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers gave a talk at the college, students were so upset by her opinions that they retreated en masse to a “safe room” with a therapy dog.“
“Retreated en masse to a safe room”. I am surprised and annoyed that they all fit – what a waste of space. Also, poor dog.
Probably an auditorium. Yes poor dog to be shut up with scads of angry, unkind and indeed stupid people.
Perhaps the dog needed therapy afterwards.
It’s disconcerting how many students haven’t grown (emotionally) beyond primary age. I find it deeply troubling that universities are not only accepting but enabling this depth of immaturity!
Universities are now much more clearly commercial enterprises, chasing greater numbers of attendees for their money. You cast the net wider and you pull in a bigger bycatch.
Plus as (many) universities are Left inclined, they share the myth that people are already impeccable as they are.
They really shouldn’t be allowed out without their mummies with them.
Their mummies made them as they are. The mummies should be jailed for child neglect.
As an 18-19 yr old student in the late 1970s I was idealistic and wet behind the ears but I never thought the world owed me anything or that I’d be offended by something I didn’t like or disagreed with. I just disagreed with it! And how could I disagree with it if it had been cancelled?
Two reasons for this. So many parents were/are bri going their children up without sound boundaries. An example from my own family, my youngest brother and his wife decided that their children would set their own boundaries and make their own norms. Result. Two young adults who went through school bullying other children and who can’t actually think for themselves without “checking” with Mum and Dad. The other is that there are few technical colleges and all young adults have to go to university,which is not the place for the majority who should be learning trades. At university they think tbey are entitled and nobody disillusions them.
The dog probably required therapy afterwards.
Great article, and deeply depressing.
Claudia Webbe is no longer a Labour MP. She is an independent having had the whip suspended after being found guilty of, ironically, harassment and given a suspended sentence of 10 weeks in prison.
‘When I use a word’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is’ said Alice ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is’ said Humpty Dumpty ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’
“ the term “fascism” traditionally connotes an authoritarian movement based on an extreme form of nationalism combined with claims of racial purity and a militaristic repression of dissent”
It seems that this term needs to be updated to – An authoritarian movement based on an extreme form of ideology combined with claims of being on the right side of history and a militant repression of debate or dissent.
Or, as we say in Scotland, the SNP !
Fascists also need an external group to scapegoat for any perceived disadvantages they believe they suffer. For the Nazis it was the Jews, for the SNP, the English.
And for the left in the U.S., it was Trump.
No, it is anyone who disagrees with them including Scottish people.
For woke fascists, it’s white people.
So your solution to leftwing smear campaigns is to expand the oldest smear campaign of liberal-left politics, branding people a “fascist?”
Stalin would be proud of you.
We need to return to the definition by Gentile which I think is ” Everything in the state , everything for the state and nothing against the state”. Fascism comes out 19th century Syndicalism and is basically ant- Catholic and aristocratic.
Giovanni Gentile – Wikipedia
“It has also made it difficult to identify real fascists and racists because the words have been downgraded to indiscriminate terms of abuse.”
The postmodernists’ constant twisting of language make it impossible to talk about anything.
40 years ago we started debating the meaning of “baby”.
10 years ago we were debating the meaning of “marriage”.
Today we’re debating the meaning of “woman”
How long before we start debating the meaning of “human”?
The same impetus that makes someone willing to libel and bankrupt a politically different person will, eventually, lead to imprisonment or worse. Once a portion of your society has been officially determined to be “not human”, it’s only a matter of time before you start hurting them.
It’s a sign of the End Times.
Animals have human rights too, as I have been told by young people who I thought had more sense but have been brainwashed by organisation s who are happy to take money from the public purse but spout rubbish.
Cabbages have rights too. And many cabbages are admitted to universities.
Defamation is bedevilled by the prohibitive level of legal costs. For most people, launching a libel action, or defending one, puts their entire fortune at risk. Costs are high because damages are high; big money is involved and that means expensive legal teams fighting for big stakes. In the result, many libels go unpunished and many true stories are stifled.
One way to deal with this might be to remove the right to damages while enhancing the right to demand correction. So, for example, if the BBC libelled Cliff Richard for 12 minutes in an evening news bulletin, the court could order that the first 12 minutes of three consecutive news bulletins be devoted to a blank screen carrying an apology and correction.
The problem with this your suggestion is that a libel can have severe financial consequences that may not be compensated for by a retraction. Obtaining professional insurance is one way of reducing the risk involved in costs. The downside always remains that the law of libel tends to shield the reputations of wealthy but dodgy individuals like Robert Maxwell and Jimmy Savile where proving their unsavoury activity is costly and difficult.
I agree, and I would allow compensation for direct and indirect financial loss, supported by evidence. However, I would not award damages for non-financial loss, such as injured feelings, indignation or anger, however well-deserved. I say this simply because I think damages-driven legal costs have spiralled out of control.
Of course, there may be cases where financial loss does not arise. I don’t suppose, for example, that J. K. Rowling will suffer any financial loss from the stupid and untrue things that have been said about her and I would not (for the reasons I have explained) award her damages for injured feelings. But I would require those who have slandered her to retract in the most public, unequivocal and humiliating way – and pay her legal costs.
I also agree that bullies can and do use the law of defamation to shield their dodgy reputations. Perhaps threatening a lawsuit to suppress the truth should be punishable as contempt of court, or indeed as a criminal offence?
These are knotty problems, with no easy solutions.
How sad that both the owners died before they were vindicated.
The opposite can also be a problem, when people try to silence accurate critical comment by labelling it a ‘smear’, as when Rishi Sunak complained that his critics had ‘smeared’ his wife in order to get at him.
But a smear can also be true – Rishi isn’t denying his wife’s former tax status, just complaining about the way the information came out.
This article is about slander, liable and untruths, not uncomfortable facts
I think Andrew Doyle in this article is clearly using ‘smear’ to mean deliberate and malicious lies, which is the correct usage. If all unwelcome comment can be deflected by being called a ‘smear’ it becomes even harder than it already is for public debate to get anywhere.
I agree with the others who have replied and would add that intent is also pertinent. If the person making public the non-dom status of Akshata Murty was motivated by the knowledge that such revelations would damage Rishi Sunak in the eyes of the public, then, however true the information is, that’s a smear.
Very nice read. I’m going to look more into this now.
I imagine the legal term ‘reasonable’ that you’d need in a law about free speech depends on a reasonable consensus across a population. Siloism and identitarianism leaves no room for this so the commentariat will have to continue like Kilkenny cats in a bag of their own making. Not sure folk working their backsides off in physically demanding jobs from bin guys to factory workers to sewer engineers give a damn.