 |
|
|
The Professor and the Web |
|
By Jesse Monteagudo
Some of the victims disagree. The gay community knows Daniel Curzon as the author of such classic novels as Something You Do in the Dark and Among the Carnivores. As Daniel Curzon-Brown, he is a professor of English at City College of San Francisco, one of the schools "served" by Teacher Review.
"Teacher Review is a fraud that was set up in a ridiculous way," Curzon-Brown tells me. "It permits people who have never been students of a teacher to send in reviews, so ex-friends, cyber hackers, anyone at all can 'review' a teacher. These 'virtual students' can then review a teacher as many times as he or she likes. The more subtle ones just way a day or a week and then post again, destroying the reputation of their choice. Nobody authenticates one single fact, most of all the fact that the people are who they say they are. It is anonymous and brings out the worst excesses in people – largely because it is anonymous and on the Internet." Curzon-Brown has a point, for some of the "F" comments that were posted about him in Teacher Review would find their authors guilty of libel if they were made anywhere but on the Internet. Most of these feature crude personal remarks about the professor's sexual orientation, confirming his belief that "raging sexual bigotry is alive and thriving." "This guy is a fag," noted one of the more printable comments, adding that "fags are disgusting. The first day of classes he said he was gay what a way to start. You are a perfect example of a fag! Congratulations!!! I'm surprised this fag didn't make us read things on the Gay Rights Movement." "If you are going to live a degenerate's lifestyle and then compound the problem by blessing your students on the first day of class with this grand revelation, then be some poor semblance of a man and take what comes without all this bawl-bag crying. Grow up - you brought this on yourself!", writes another. Other imagine the professor having sex with his students, underage boys, and barnyard animals. "I am afraid for my life," Curzon tells me. "I look around me all the time, especially on campus." The fact that many of his critics are obviously not students only makes things worse, and more terrifying. "In my case it is clear the homosexuality has triggered massive hatred, and I am especially troubled by the one that says 'POOF someone should kill poofs.' Some people take this literally. I will send this one to the Hate Crimes Division of the San Francisco Police Department, to go with the other ones I have had to file." Teacher Review and Ryan Lathouwers enjoy the support of the American Civil Liberties Union and some Internet experts, who believe that Curzon-Brown's suit threatens the Internet's status as a vehicle for free expression.
Curzon disagrees: "Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers did not intend the First Amendment to protect someone saying, my teacher 'likes it doggy style.' This is a real comment from TR about a female teacher, made in the past. The same rules that apply to journalism – magazines, newspapers, esp. letters to the editor, should be applied to the Internet. I do not want to close down the Internet. I do not want to penalize Internet Service Providers, but people running Web sites like Teacher Review have to be responsible, not make one rule for them and other rules for everybody else. Haven't we heard enough about Special Rights for gays??!!! The Internet really does think it is entitled to Special Rights. Who said? God?" Curzon-Brown disagrees with his opponents, who are appalled by the nasty comments in Teacher Review but who envision a legitimate role for this Web site. "Let every profession, including judges, be reviewed anonymously online by disgruntled people, fired employees, people sentenced to prison, rivals for business, and teachers reviewing their students all anonymous, of course, and multiple times. How would you like to have people do this to you? “There is a copious lack of empathy for American teachers. Teachers should rebel and cancel their membership in the ACLU for defending the Web master here – and pro bono at that." Perhaps all this is a reflection of the relatively low status that teachers "enjoy" in U.S. society. The case of Daniel Curzon-Brown versus Teacher Review is a difficult one, and brings up issues of freedom of expression versus personal integrity and antigay defamation. Though Curzon promises to carry his fight to the bitter end, some experts think the courts will eventually come down on the side of the Internet. We will see. Meanwhile, Daniel Curzon's career as a writer has taken a back seat to his crusade as an academic: "Curzon is trying to get people to read his new book: Not Necessarily Nice: Stories, but nobody seems to be paying attention to this part of his life." This is a shame, for no matter what one thinks of the case at hand, there is no denying that Curzon is one of our community's truly great writers. Of course this is something that his attackers will never find out. |
A caricature of Daniel Curzon 
© 1997-2000 BEI