University adjunct sociology Professor Douglas Card is suing two New York Post columnists for libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress after months of wrangling to get allegedly libelous statements about him retracted.
Card filed a lawsuit on Sept. 12 in Lane County Court against defendants Daniel Pipes and Jonathan Schanzer. Card is seeking $1.35 million in damages.
Pipes and Schanzer wrote an article — “Extremists on Campus,” published June 25, 2002, in the New York Post — stating Card and three other professors were “left-wing extremists” and taught material that was anti-Israel.
Pipes, who has written numerous pieces on the Middle East, is the director of the Middle East Forum and a contentious President Bush appointee to the U.S Institute of Peace.
Jonathan Schanzer, a scholar in radical Islamic movements, is a fellow at the Washington Institute. At the time of the article’s publication he was Pipes’ research assistant.
The columnists wrote that Card said Israel was a “terrorist state” and “stole land.” They based their assertions on comments made by a Jewish student who took Card’s class. According to the article, Card also called Israelis “baby killers” and “bashed Jews and Israelis at ‘every opportunity.’”
The article is now posted on the Campus Watch Web site, an organization that reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America.
“I tried for several months since last summer to negotiate a solution,” Card said of trying to get the statement retracted. “It never happened; it never worked.”
David Force, Card’s lawyer, said Card had made every effort to avoid taking the matter to court.
“Mr. Pipes has no interest in resolving the issue,” Force said.
According to the suit, “defendants’ publication of the false and defamatory statements of and concerning the plaintiff … caused injury to plaintiff’s reputation and good name, and caused him to suffer extreme emotional distress.”
“It still hurts every time when I go online and see those words,” Card said, adding that the months following the article’s publication were possibly the worst in his life.
Pipes said via e-mail that he had no comments about the case. Schanzer did not return three phone calls.
Card said he has received widespread support from other students and faculty, the campus and Jewish communities. He said many people approached him when the controversy began to say they did not believe he had made the statements. However, he said he still worries about the impressions the article may have left on new students and parents who do not know him and therefore may question his teaching methods. He also said he received many negative e-mails from people outside Eugene who felt he should be fired.
“For a teacher, a reputation is everything,” Card said, adding that standing up for his reputation is what inspired him to file the suit.
Card, who teaches the University’s “Social Inequality” class, said he has always been an ardent advocate for equality and tolerance among all ethnic and economic groups.
“I have hated anti-Semitism all my life,” he said. “I couldn’t have been hit with a more hurtful charge.”
Pipes and Schanzer have stood by their statements, saying Card had not fulfilled their requests to warrant a retraction despite many people, including prominent Eugene Jewish leaders, speaking in Card’s favor. In a letter published in November 2002 in the Jewish Review, a Portland newsletter, Pipes and Schanzer said they asked Card to provide them with names of his students to interview and a copy of his final exam, which students had allegedly complained about, but Card refused. He also refused to publish an essay condemning “bias and political activism in the classroom,” which they would have exchanged for a retraction, the columnists said.
However, the suit states the columnists asked Card to violate laws since releasing student names is against official school policy. It also claims that although Schanzer and Pipes knew the statements were false, they did not make any corrections to the article until Nov. 1, 2002. The new version of the article on www.campus-watch.org has the word “reportedly” added to it.