Senior Iris Halpern filed a libel complaint against The Primary Source last week in response to a letter to the editor printed in its Dec. 6 issue, Source Editor-in-chief Sam Dangremond said. Both Halpern and the Dean of Students Office have confirmed the report, though Dean of Students Bruce Reitman declined to release the names of students involved.
Halpern also charged the Source with retaliating against her for a previous sexual harassment charge she made against the magazine, and filed charges against the University for disregarding sexualharassment laws. The charge against Tufts was filed through the University's Office of Equal Opportunity Title IX coordinator.
"They didn't enforce their policy and prevent [the Source] from retaliating against me," Halpern said.
The Dec. 6 Source included an anonymous letter to the editor signed only with initials and the class year "'04." When questioned, the writer later identified herself to reporters as a female Tufts sophomore whose name will bewithheld from this report to protect her identity as an alleged sexual harassment victim.
In the letter, the woman wrote that Halpern "physically harassed" her as "she dragged me onto the empty dance floor as I pleaded to let me go." The woman later alleged that Halpern had groped her, making her feel "violated." The woman said some of the statements in the letter could be interpreted differently by different people, but maintained that it was accurate. "I'm not going to take back what I said," she said.
Source Editor in Chief Sam Dangremond said he attempted to verify the authenticity and truth of the letter before publishing it. He received the letter from a friend of the woman, whom he was also acquainted with. Dangremond described the friend as a "secondary witness," as the harassment victim had allegedly told the friend of the alleged encounter with Halpern immediately after it happened.
"I verified to the best of my ability that the events alleged were truthful," Dangremond said. "I will do my best to preserve my own and other publications' right to the First Amendment... this will not go through." Both the woman and Halpern said they had not been directly contacted about the letter by anyone on the Source staff prior to its publication.
Also under contention is a comment made in the "From the Elephant's Mouth" section in the Source's Jan. 31 issue, claiming that the woman who claimed she was molested by Halpern was "summoned" by the Dean ofStudent's Office "to sign a statement declaring that the incident had never occurred."
The alleged harassment victim acknowledged meeting with the Dean of Students but said she was not summoned nor was she required to sign any document. She said she voluntarily signed a document that retracted some of the more general statements in the letter.
Halpern said she has seen the document and that it absolves her of any wrongdoing. The alleged victim said that certain words used in the letter, such as "grope," could be interpreted differently.
"I think that word can be used in a sexual and a non-sexual way," she said. "She was being sexual, but the groping was non-sexual."
Halpern said she was enraged that the Source printed what she termed "false information." She said she has spent much of the semester dealing with the issue.
"I didn't touch her [and] didn't say anything to her," Halpern said. "She had a bizarre homophobic reaction to me dancing with my other friends who were girls.
"They just wanted to destroy me because I made those charges against them," she continued. "The lack of verification, lack of research shows just how happy they were to get me."
Halpern charged the Source with sexual harassment last semester when it printed inflammatory comments that Halpern alleged were about her. The Committee on Student Life (CSL) found the Source not guilty.
"They disliked me and my politics so much; they thought it would be okay to call me a molester," Halpern said. "I went through the CSL and when I lost I didn't personally attack them."
Generally, libel law allows letters to the editor containing unsupported derogatory accusations or containing false statements to form a basis for a libel suit. In order for public figures - a category that includes those involved in specific public controversies - to win a libel case, they must prove the defendant knew the statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. It is unclear what standard Tufts will use to determine whether thestatement was libelous.
The alleged harassment victim said the Source should have contacted her if it had concerns regarding the letter. "It's my opinion; if they were questionable then it's the Source's responsibility to investigate it," she said.
Halpern said that the Jan. 31 issue was an example of the Source disregarding the truth. She said the Source knew that the statement was in question at that point, yet still printed libelous information.
"On January 31st they were aware that I was contesting it, and they still went ahead and printed that I was a molester," Halpern said.
