I go in for some outpatient eye surgery, and all of a sudden weird legal stuff happens in the philosophy world. Several who sent this asked whether Heidi Lockwood's affidavit about what others said or allegedly knew about Peter Ludlow prior to his appointment at Northwestern didn't constitute "hearsay" (out-of-court statements offered to prove the truth of what they assert). The answer is that most of it does not if, as I suspect, the claims are being offered only to show that people at Northwestern were allegedly on "notice" as to alleged prior misconduct by Ludlow, and thus Northwestern failed in its Title IX obligations by not investigating the allegations and by hiring him nonetheless. (The out-of-court statements don't have to be true to nonetheless show the party hearing them was on notice of possible wrongdoing.) It does not help, of course, that the parties Lockwood purports to quote or ascribe prior knowledge to (Professors Goldberg, Lackey and Reed at Northwestern, and Professor Kvanvig at Baylor) have flatly denied the accuracy of her affidavit. Lockwood may be right that Ludlow's lawsuits have chilled discussion of the case, but insofar as the speech chilled is false and defamatory, as Ludlow has alleged, then it should be chilled. Certainly the case has been extensively discussed notwithstanding some pending legal actions and the merits will ultimately be adjudicated not by blogs but by courts.
I was struck by the fact that while some allegations in the Lockwood affidavit would be relevant to the undergraduate's case if true, other allegations struck me as simply bizarre and irrelevant, even if true (a failure to "like" posts on Facebook, among them!). It's hard for me to figure what the plaintiff's lawyer was thinking. In any case, to the best of my knowledge, even false and harmful statements in an affidavit part of a legal motion can not be grounds for a tort suit. I do fear Professor Lockwood's statement in the Northwestern student paper that she came forward "because there are philosophers who have knowledge and want to talk, but are afraid to" could, in context, be grounds for tortious liability.
UPDATE: Professor Kvanvig gave permission to post the following statement about the Lockwood affidavit:
I am on the side of doing whatever I can to stop the insanity in our profession regarding sexual misconduct. But I will not be a pawn to be used by those on the same side, and I have been.
I was cited extensively in the most recent affidavit from Heidi Howkins Lockwood and the lawyers involved….
Citations to me were included without my permission and without prior efforts to allow me to correct attributions. Both elements, by themselves, are egregious.
In addition, the citations are inaccurate in the following way. Heidi and I have had several conversations about the current state of the discipline regarding sexual misconduct. In every case, I have expressed support and willingness to do whatever I can to make things change. But also in every case, the conversations were about the rumor mill in philosophy regarding the cases in question, and in every case the conversations were about this rumor mill. So when I am cited as saying that "X happened," the context was always, and would have been understood to always involve, the qualifier about the rumor mill. I have no knowledge of what has happened in the cases that have become public, nor of the cases that are still secret, with the exception of those at institutions where I have taught (which are, of course, not part of the issue here).
So, to attribute claims to me that certain things have happened is grossly irresponsible, since all that could be responsibly attributed is the claim that I, too, had heard rumors to such an effect.
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