I certainly see your point (and I actually find the means to your stated end tempting), but I gotta go with what **Fiveyearlurker ** said. As much as I like the idea of making bigots and other assorted assholes STFU ('cause, really, they’re annoying, in addition to being dumbasses), I wouldn’t dig the notion that somebody could sue me into either silence or submissive speech just because I say something they disagree with (which would be often, if folks knew even half the shit that I think), even if what I say couldn’t, by any objective standard (IMHO, anyway), be classified as defamatory.
Wee Bairn, I think that **5-4-Fighting ** is right. We can think that the suit is stupid/frivolous/money-grubbing/whatever all we want, but whatever Ms. Vaughn’s motivations may be (and I don’t know any more than anyone else on the sidelines does what her motivations are), she certainly doesn’t deserve to be called a dumb bitch. I actually think that the moniker “bitch” (modifid by “dumb” and a whole lotta other adjectives) belongs to Mr. Imus.
So no, a dumb bitch she’s not.
What she very well might be is a young lady who, having suffered some measure of calumnious behavior by some asshats who were inspired by both their own asholishness and Mr. Imus’s lack of civility (who says that children are the only ones who can be cruel?), is (understandably dispirited) and (very rightfully) angry, and is looking for some way–*any * way that seems legitimate–to soothe her wounds. And, perhaps lacking the requisite self-esteem and emotional support from others to withstand such insults (and to recoginize these insults’ place in the greater scheme of things)–or, perhaps having no dearth of (potentially unscrupulous) people egging her on–she’s decided that the best path to something that she can recognize as “healing” is this lawsuit.
So she’s a standout student-athlete, helped win a championship for a top university, has the name “Rutgers” emblazoned across her diploma. How is it possible for a foul-mouthed, grumpy old fucker like Don I’m-ass to damage her reputation in any way!? I mean, the guy has the credibility of a street urchin. It’s like saying some drunk yelled something salacious at her on the street and completely ruined everything she’s done in her life! What crap!
I’d like to know how this is supposed to make her feel better. As others have said, she’s pushed her way into the spotlight, and will surely be called worse now after this lawsuit. I can certainly understand why she was hurt, but it should have been obvious that this wouldn’t help the situation.
Totally agreed, but like I said (and I certainly don’t get the sense that your post was directed at me), I think that there’s some stuff going on beneath the surface (low self-esteem, perhaps) or behind the scenes (unnamed parties encouraging her to sue) that’s playing a role in this.
No one is proposing new laws. The laws in place that defend most free speech under the 1st Ad, but have exceptions allowing to sue for Slander and Libel have been in place for some 200 years and Free Speech seems to be alive and well.
I missed that post before, but you raise some good points. It’ll be interesting to see if her teammates decide to speak on this, and which side (if any) they’ll take.
The thing I found curious was the timing; her lawsuit was filed the same day he reached a $20 million settlement with CBS. I don’t know if she knew about that, but given how long has passed since the incident, it certainly makes her look greedy rather than concerned about her reputation that she’s suing now rather than immediately afterward.
I’m not sure if you misunderstood me, but I certainly didn’t misunderstand you: I never got the sense that you were proposing legislated limits on free speech. And IANAL and I haven’t yet considered as fully as I can the exceptions that you noted, but I don’t have a problem with the exceptions as you’ve described them above.
My point was simply that I couldn’t in good conscience advocate that people willy-nilly sue someone (and not, necessarily, that I think that you were thinking in terms of willy-nilly) who says something that they consider to be disagreeable since (among other reasons) I wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to me.
Thanks. And, yeah, that *would * be interesting, wouldn’t it?
Well, it doesn’t take terribly long to file a lawsuit, but given the timing, it’d seem to me that someone would have to have a really fine-tuned sense prescience to (a) file the lawsuit in the hopes of laying claim to some of the settlement, or (b) have the story about the suit be part of the same news cycle as that of the settlement. IANAJournalist, though, so I don’t know what the case might be.
Also, my (admittedly limited) understanding is that trauma (I’m calling it trauma since Ms. Vaughn seems to be alleging some kind of trauma) doesn’t always manifest itself immediately. It’s a tricky creature.
Just because Imus has little credibility with you and me doesn’t mean he has no credibility anywhere.
His show, by all accounts, was immensely popular, as evidenced by the fact that the remaining four years of his CBS contract was worth almost $40 million dollars. This suggests that he had credibility with quite a few people. And there have been multiple news stories over the past few days about his probable return to radio, most likely somewhere in New York and possibly again with a national audience.
I’m not really sure how i feel about this lawsuit. Personally, i think that calling someone’s sexual chastity into question should not be grounds for per se defamation in modern society (as per crowmanyclouds’ link), but if society has decided that sexual prudery is going to form the basis for civil defamation suits, then why shouldn’t she use the law to her advantage?
But, whatever anyone thinks of the suit, it’s not enough to simply argue that no-one listens to Imus anyway, or that no-one takes him seriously, because people clearly do listen, and people clearly do take him seriously. If he gets back on the air with a nationally-syndicated show sometime soon, i’ll bet that his listener numbers are very quickly back up in the millions.
I haven’t been following the case closely, so I don’t know how much it was in the news recently, but the settlement was to stave off a much larger suit by Imus, and it’s not inconceivable to me that her lawyer had that suit in his pocket just waiting for Imus to come into some cash. I obviously can’t know for sure that that was her motivation; it could actually have been sheer coincidence, just saying it doesn’t look good for her.
I frankly think her trauma would be better treated by seeing a therapist than filing a very public lawsuit and dragging the whole thing into the news again, but that seems to be the American way nowadays. “You hurt my feelings! Gimme some money!”
Yawn Is this really the most frivolous lawsuit on the books today? Doubtful. I won’t bat an eyelash until I hear about a guy in New Mexico who now experiences anxiety attacks because his young daughter saw a news report about the scandal and he had to explain what a ‘ho’ is. That’s the America I know and love.
Here’s what sports columnist Jason Whitlock has to say on the matter- bonus point if you can guess what color he is
…Yes, it seems that C. Vivian Womandela’s players learned the exact lesson she taught throughout the Imus fiasco: play the victim for all the money and fame that it’s worth and ignore the price others may pay for your selfishness.
Again, let me restate for the record my opinion on the Imus fiasco. Don Imus was wrong. He needed to be punished with a suspension. Sharpton, Jackson and Stringer milked Imus’ mistake for personal gain, and at the end of the day put the Rutgers’ players in harm’s way (opposing fan backlash, death threats) over a minor incident.
Kia Vaughn is now following the example of her fearle$$ leaders. She wants her piece of the pie. She doesn’t care that her lawsuit will undermine the credibility of her former teammates and make the Rutgers women look like money-grubbing, attention-starved opportunists. Vaughn watched Womandela cash in with a book deal and new contract, so why shouldn’t at least one of the allegedly highly offended players get in on the score?
Even though hardly anyone in America knows who she is — and those who do, only know her as one of the “classy and intelligent” Rutgers players — Imus’ stupid words supposedly damaged Vaughn’s character and reputation to the extent that she needed to file a lawsuit to recover her good name.
It’s a mistake alright. Not in the sense that he meant to say they were a fine bunch of athletes and somehow accidentally said they were a lot of darkie sluts; but in that it showed spectacularly bad judgement.
Starting a campfire with a gallon of gasoline and a Bic mini-lighter is a mistake, even if you really intended to splash that stuff all over the place and spark it up.
Jason Whitlock is a dick. I don’t give a shit what he says one way or the other. Positioning himself as the “anti-Jackson” seems to be him new schtick.
Kia Vaughn has a right to seek redress in court if she feels she was defamed by Imus’ words. She also has to prove that this was indeed the case. She may not be able to.
I know some people think that all Black people, all women, should take racial and gender-based insults with “dignity” (meaning they should STFU and “get over it”) but I take the view that unless you (generic you, not directed at any person in particular) have been tarred with the brush that Imus slapped on those women, you aren’t really in the position to judge. Perhaps you’d handle it differently. That’s okay too.
Okay, I was reading it as a way to diminish his behavior.
Just to make sure I’m understanding you correctly, are you saying that a person needs to have been called a racist/sexist slur in order to fairly judge the merits of this lawsuit?
I don’t follow sports, so I know nothing about Jason Whitlock, but to my way of thinking, his characterization of what Imus did as a “mistake” and a “minor incident” already makes him seriously suspect.
And, despite whatever I might think about Ms. Vaughn’s lawsuit, I’d be very hard-pressed to think that it’s motivated by something as base as “selfishness.”
