TO THE EDITOR:
I wish to respond to The Daily Tar Heel’s excellent article about me. I never “involved the UNC network in a personal dispute.”
I briefly corresponded on University email with a so-called animal activist who wrote many University officials with false claims about my association with a local non-profit animal welfare association, FOCAS.
Two months later, after accessing my personal emails, the University’s general counsel, Leslie Strohm, repeated Joseph Villarosa’s false accusations, threatening to disable my IT account.
I immediately responded, copying the chancellor, but received no reply. Two months later, following hundreds of emails from Villarosa to University officials, Strohm wrote me saying “please remove — immediately — from any University resources any links to material referencing Mr. Villarosa, either directly or indirectly … I believe you now use private email accounts to continue your disputes with others. And, I acknowledge that the website you maintain on University resources is clean on its face. It is the links that continue to be problematic.”
The same day she wrote Villarosa saying, “This is not a University matter.”
I did remove the link but asked for a retraction of her earlier false claims and an apology. In retaliation, the chancellor had my email and website disabled in violation of my First Amendment rights.
I believe that all students and faculty should be concerned about this invasion of privacy and retaliation for speech.
A summary of my correspondence may be found on http://tinyurl.com/cramerA1 with full documentation on http://tinyurl.com/cramerA2.
