Alabama A&M University is threatening to sue attorney and online investigative journalist Donald Watkins for his reporting on scandals swirling around the Huntsville campus. In a report this afternoon, Watkins writes under the headline "Alabama A&M University Threatens Watkins’ Right to Freedom of Speech as a Journalist":
After three months of deafening silence on its plans to collect $527,280,064 that U.S. Departments of Education and Agriculture declared on September 18, 2023, was due and owing to Alabama A&M University by the state of Alabama, the university is finally ready to fight in court.
Alabama A&M has hired a national law firm – MaynardNexsen (which has 24 offices from its base in Columbia, South Carolina – and a team of lawyers to wage this court fight.
According to a December 20, 2023, “Cease and Desist” letter from MaynardNexsen, the state of Alabama is NOT the opponent in this court fight. This is NOT a court fight to collect Alabama A&M’s $527,280,064 debt from the state.
No, that kind of court fight takes real courage, which Alabama A&M is sorely lacking.
This is a legal fight to shut me up as an independent online journalist who cannot be bought. Alabama A&M wants me to stop editorializing about this $527,280,064 debt and the school’s failure to collect it.
A&M's demands do not end with the threat of a lawsuit, Watkins reports:
Alabama A&M also wants me to remove my published editorial opinions from the Internet related to the $527,280,064 debt.
Additionally, Alabama A&M wants me to forego my First Amendment right to publish future articles and editorial opinions about Alabama A&M University.
The threatening letter was sent to me after I published an article yesterday about Dr. Roderick Watts, chairman of the Alabama A&M board of trustees, and his apparent conflict of interest arising from a legal dispute with the state over this $527,280,064 debt.
Has Watkins' reporting struck a raw nerve with someone in authority? It sure looks like it -- and it might not be limited to A&M. The state of Alabama -- 'led" by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, an avowed Trumper -- has a vested interest in not paying the debt, so Ivey and others in state government could be involved in the threatening-letter campaign. Writes Watkins:
Here are the pertinent excerpts from Alabama A&M’s threatening letter:
“This law firm has been retained by Alabama Agricultural & Mechanical University (Alabama A&M or the University) in connection with your defamatory and improper publications regarding Alabama A&M and members of its staff and leadership, including Dr. Daniel K. Wims (the Alabama A&M Parties). The Alabama A&M Parties have authorized us to send this pre-suit communication to you.
You are publishing false, defamatory, and disparaging comments regarding the Alabama A&M Parties to the public, and this defamatory and disparaging conduct is not isolated, but is systematic, continuous and ongoing. There is no legitimate interest served in you continuing to smear the names of the Alabama A&M Parties on your internet postings, including the website DonaldWatkins.com and Facebook. We are ready to show -- in court if necessary --- that your postings are false and defamatory, including some that are defamatory per se, falsely accusing the Alabama A&M Parties of vile, improper conduct in statements that are intentionally harmful to their reputations. . . .
In addition to false, defamatory, and very disturbing statements about members of the faculty and staff and others associated with Alabama A&M, your internet postings specifically include false claims about the following: Dr. Wims having been terminated from prior employment positions; Dr. Wims having allegedly made improper sexual advances; Dr. Wims stating that Alabama A&M would not be seeking money from the State of Alabama; Dr. Wims having misled students, faculty, staff members, alumni, and community supporters of Alabama A&M; Dr. Wims being a sexual predator; Dr. Wims having an addiction for sexual encounters with men and women; Dr. Wims exploring counseling options for a sexual addiction; as well as purposeful and malicious mischaracterizations of prior legal proceedings involving Alabama A&M.
Because your statements have no basis in fact, your conduct violates well-established Alabama law. Alabama A&M's faculty members, staff, and leadership are educated and respected professionals in the community and have spent many years building positive reputations. Your defamatory and disparaging conduct has already caused and is continuing to cause irreparable damage to the Alabama A&M Parties' reputations and character. In addition to the personal attacks, your postings are also intentionally targeting Alabama A&M' s business interests in attempts to interfere with its business relationships and harm its reputation.
Therefore, the Alabama A&M Parties demand that you immediately cease and desist from engaging in any further activities that defame them, disparage their professional interests, or any further attempts to tortiously interfere with and harm the University's business, including the contractual relations of Alabama A&M.....”
Has Watkins' reporting actually been false and defamatory? I doubt it. I've received a few cease-and- desist letters over the years, and my impression is that they are the first in a line of scare tactics some law firms like to use. Was it wise for Alabama A&M and its high-priced lawyers to threaten Donald Watkins? Given Watkins stellar record as a courtroom litigator, I would say it was an off-the-charts stupid thing to do. For one, A&M could be setting itself up for a countersuit that might result in hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) in damages, plus attorney fees paid to the wronged party. Two, my guess is that A&M will have a difficult time proving its case -- and the burden of proof will be on the university. Third, Maynard Nexsen sets itself up for potentially serious repercussions. Firing off threatening letters might seem like fun at first -- until the fallout sets in. That can include a legal-malpractice lawsuit against the firm, depending on the law in the jurisdiction where the case is heard. It can include sanctions, imposed by a court or other authoritative body. And it could lead to suspension or revocation of law licenses if the case involves a state that takes the policing of rogue lawyers seriously. In short, Donald Watkins is not the kind of person you want to take on in court, and he clearly takes this matter seriously, writing:
As a professional journalist, I take every threat to freedom of speech very seriously. This is particularly true when the suppressor of freedom of speech is a public institution in Alabama -- a state that arrests and jails journalists just like they do in Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China.
The 1964 landmark case protecting freedom of speech for journalists – New York Times v. Sullivan – actually arose from a Montgomery, Alabama, public official’s defamation claims against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and four other Black pastors who were leading the civil-rights movement in the early 1960s.
White public officials across the South used state-court defamation claims as a tool of intimidation against Black activists. Their goal was to stop Blacks from questioning and challenging the conditions of their second-class citizenship in the racially segregated South.
Alabama A&M is doing the same thing here.
Alabama A&M is acting as a surrogate for the political forces in Alabama who seek to keep Black Alabamians downtrodden “from the cradle to the grave.” This is why the target of Alabama A&M's pre-litigation exercise is me, rather than the state of Alabama. The “Cease and Desist” letter is used as a tool for intimidation.
You can read my response to Alabama A&M’s threat to curtail the exercise of my freedom of speech rights by clicking here.
I am a freelance professional journalist with more than 900 copyrighted and published news articles and editorial opinions. My published articles and editorials regarding the conduct of public entities and public officials conform to the legal principles enunciated in New York Times v. Sullivan and its progeny.
I stand by the truth of the statements contained in the cache of editorial opinions referenced in Alabama A&M's threatening letter, as well as my First Amendment right to express such opinions.
