Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:53:54 -0400
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
Subject: Court Orders Name of Professor Behind 'Truth at ULM' Site
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

[Note from Matthew Gaylor:  The Truth at ULM is located at: 
<http://www.truthatulm.homestead.com/>

From: BobbyLilly@aol.com
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:14:10 EDT
Subject: Court Orders Web Company to Name Professor Behind 'Truth at 
ULM' Site
To: freematt@coil.com

Matt,

just came across this article and thought I'd pass it on.

regards,
Bobby Lilly

Subject: Court Orders Web Company to Name Professor Behind 'Truth at ULM' Site


This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education
(http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: bobbylilly@aol.com

   Wednesday, October 24, 2001

   Court Orders Web Company to Name Professor Behind 'Truth at
   ULM' Site

   By SCOTT CARLSON

   A federal court has ordered a Web-hosting company to reveal
   the identity of a professor who runs a Web site critical of
   the administration at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
   The order was filed on Monday.

   U.S. Magistrate James D. Kirk ordered the company, Homestead
   Technologies, to give the professor's name to Richard L.
   Baxter, the university's vice president of external affairs,
   who filed a motion seeking the information and who is expected
   to file a defamation suit. Homestead must reveal the name
   within 30 days.

   The Web site, Truth at ULM, has posted leaked documents,
   muckraking articles, and essays damning the university's
   administration. (See an article from The Chronicle, December
   1, 2000.)  The university has had financial troubles in recent
   years. Its president, Lawson L. Swearingen Jr., who was a
   frequent target of the attacks, resigned in August.

   The site has also been sharply critical of Mr. Baxter, saying
   that his "job is to make sure that Swearingen's incompetence
   and ULM's state of decline under Swearingen are kept under
   cover." The site once called Mr. Baxter the "Vice President of
   Excremental Affairs" and said he had been "shoveling so long
   he is cracking under the strain."

   Mr. Baxter would not comment on the court order. His lawyer
   did not return calls from The Chronicle.

   The order is a disappointment for the professor behind Truth
   at ULM, who had gone to great lengths to prevent
   identification, setting up anonymous e-mail accounts and
   remote, online fax services to get documents.

   The professor had at first established an anonymous Web
   account with Homestead Technologies. "They wouldn't even have
   my name if it had not been for them going from a free service
   to a pay service over the summer," the professor said in a
   telephone interview Tuesday. "I had to give them my name and a
   credit-card number."

   Homestead Technologies did not oppose Mr. Baxter's motion at
   the hearing. "They have a contract with me that says that they
   will keep me anonymous unless good-faith compliance with the
   law requires it," the professor said. "Well, their
   interpretation of that is, if anybody gets a court order, they
   will not oppose it and will give over what they have."

   Jody Kramer, the vice president of corporate communications at
   Homestead, says that in cases like this, the company does not
   attend the hearing to try to stop a court order. But the
   company will wait the full 30 days to give its customer time
   to file a motion to stop the order after it has been issued.

   The professor who runs the Truth site has hired a lawyer and
   plans to prepare such a filing.

   The professor admits being frightened. "I think [Mr. Baxter]
   has a very good chance of getting what he wants," the
   professor said. "I'm going to start wondering how far tenure
   will go to protect me, what kind of administrative nightmare
   that they can make my life, whether they will try to fire me,
   or whether I'll end up teaching three night classes."

   Robert C. Eisenstadt, an associate professor of economics at
   Monroe, says the mood on the campus is one of "disbelief."

   "One, we're having a hard time figuring out where [Mr. Baxter]
   has been defamed," he said. "Some of the comments from the
   people that I have been speaking with don't believe that he is
   even suing -- that this was all a ploy to identify individuals
   associated with the Web site."




This article from The Chronicle is available online at this address:

http://chronicle.com/free/2001/10/2001102401t.htm

If you would like to have complete access to The Chronicle's Web
site, a special subscription offer can be found at:
   http://chronicle.com/4free


You may visit The Chronicle as follows:

    * via the World-Wide Web, at http://chronicle.com
    * via telnet at chronicle.com


  Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education


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