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Drooling on the Pillow

Friday, March 25, 2005

Getting SLAPPed Around by Stevens 

I was reading Shabe's story about the sentencing of Robert Janiszewski and followed his link to The Hudson Forum. Feelings are apparently running high over there and Shabe questions whether the heavy sentence Janiszewski received despite a lot of cooperation in bagging other bad guys will be a disincentive to the next elected crook (who knows, there might be another one) to cooperate at all.

At The Hudson Forum I ran across this story by Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff concerning the dismissal of a defamation suit brought by Stevens Institute against a pair of local community activists, Ron Hine and Aaron Lewit, and Fund for a Better Waterfront (FBW) the group Hine and Lewit represent.
SLAPP stands for strategic litigation against public
participation. SLAPP suits are most typically aimed at
groups and individuals who raise objections to
development projects based on issues such as land use
and environmental concerns. In response, corporations
or developers file lawsuits claiming public statements
made by the protestors are defamatory and caused them
economic hardship. Courts tend to see such suits as an
attack on free speech and often strike them down. But
the aim of a SLAPP is not just legal victory: it's a
retaliatory move with the intent of tying up foes in long
costly legal battles. Since the most typical SLAPP
launchers are corporations and developers, the action
by Stevens Institute of Technology, a university,
against Hine, Lewit and FBW was unusual. However,
what touched off the suit was a dispute over a Stevens
development project. One which raised issues of land
use and environmental concerns.
The dispute concerned the development of the abandoned Hoboken waterfront. Stevens wanted a portion of Castle Rock for the Lawrence T. Babbio Center for Technology Management and a parking garage. FBW contended that blasting for the project was releasing dangerous amounts of asbestos and at any rate proper clearances for the blasting hadn't been obtained. Stevens contended that the publicity cost it more than $1 million. SLAPP suit.

Not much has been said about the troubles of Stevens president Harold J. Raveché since the flurry of blogs referring to the Chronicle of Higher Education article about funny business at Stevens concerning dicey loans and falling bond ratings a few weeks ago. To my knowledge the story hasn't moved into the mainstream media. I have no more first hand knowledge of the SLAPP suit story than I did of the earlier one. I'd be glad to hear Stevens' side of the story, but meanwhile it appears at the very least they have some work to do in repairing their reputation as a neighbor and corporate citizen.
Posted by: Sluggo / 4:46 PM
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