Defamation Dismissed

The dismissal of a defamation claim brought by a parent who sued the private school that his child had attended has been affirmed by the New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department

The complaint failed to state a claim for defamation because defendant’s statements to the New York Post and Fox News were nonactionable expressions of opinion and were substantially true. The use of the words “liar” or “lying” can sometimes be deemed actionable. However, under the circumstances of the case, defendant’s assertion that plaintiff was lying was rhetorical. First, the tone of both statements, which were made in the context of a public dispute between plaintiff and defendant, indicates to the reader that the person making the statement is expressing his or her personal views, in that it reflects a degree of frustration and resentment by defendant at plaintiff’s allegations (see Sandals Resorts Intl. Ltd. v Google, Inc., 86 AD3d 32, 43 [1st Dept 2011]). Second, in the context of the entire New York Post article, defendant’s remark of calling the allegations against it untrue can only be understood as a specific denial of plaintiff’s factual accusations and cannot be construed as defamatory (see Independent Living Aids v. Maxi-Aids, Inc., 981 F Supp 124, 128 [ED NY 1997]). Moreover, the documentary evidence presented by defendant in connection with the motion to dismiss demonstrated that the challenged statements were substantially truthful, if not absolutely truthful (see Stepanov v Dow Jones & Co., Inc., 120 AD3d 28, 34 [1st Dept 2014]).

Jewish Press reported

In late April, Harvey Goldman told “Fox & Friends First” that he decided to pull his daughter, 9, from the Abraham Joshua Heschel School on the west side of Manhattan because the school was teaching students about Black Lives Matter, a movement Goldman believes is “Marxist and destructive.”

On Tuesday, Goldman told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson that other Heschel parents are taking their children out of the school, a claim Goldman repeated on Wednesday, when he told the NY Post other parents are following his example.

“Nobody I’ve spoken to believes this is good for children,” Goldman told the Post. “I am personally hearing from a handful of parents who are also pulling their kids out of the school — and their friends are, too.”

The Heschel School released a statement saying, “We are a Jewish day school and very proud of our secular and religious curriculum, which Mr. Goldman is fundamentally misrepresenting. His family informed us last summer that they would likely relocate to Florida for financial reasons. We were surprised to read about his new explanation for the move and question his motives for making such statements at this time.”

The Heschel School defines itself as a “pluralistic, egalitarian community that includes families from a wide range of Jewish backgrounds, practices, and beliefs,” and says that “boys and girls, men and women participate equally in all aspects of the school’s religious, intellectual, and communal life.”

According to Webster’s, Woke is a “slang term that is easing into the mainstream from some varieties of a dialect called African American Vernacular English.” Stay woke became a watch word in parts of the black community for those who were self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better. But stay woke and woke became part of a wider discussion in 2014, immediately following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The word woke became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement; instead of just being a word that signaled awareness of injustice or racial tension, it became a word of action. Activists were woke and called on others to stay woke.

On “Fox & Friends First,” Goldman related that the Heschel School was “teaching these young children about having white privilege,” and about “the murder of George Floyd,” even though at the time it “wasn’t an established murder” yet.

Last September, Goldman sent a letter to the school, saying, “First and foremost, neither I nor my child, have ‘white privilege,’ nor do we need to apologize for it. Suggesting I do is insulting. Suggesting to my 9-year-old child she does is child abuse, not education.”

According to Goldman, a Heschel administrator said he should take his daughter out of the school, which he did, and, according to the Post, he enrolled his daughter in a public school, but not before making sure the school did not teach critical race theory (CRT) in the curriculum.

As to his claim that other angry Heschel parents are following his example, Goldman said, “My friend has a kindergartner and her child came home and asked, ‘Mommy, am I bad because I’m white?’”

According to Goldman, parents from all over flood his Facebook account with messages of support, to which he says, “I’m not a social warrior – I just think it’s wrong what they’re doing.”

In conclusion, it’s still not clear whether Harvey Goldman decided to move his daughter to Florida in response to the Heschel school’s progressive agenda, or the other way around. It’s also not clear whether there really is a movement of Jewish parents plucking their children out of their $43,000 a year school program for the progressive thing or any other reason. It’s quite likely, in fact, that Jewish parents who joined the Heschel “pluralistic, egalitarian community that includes families from a wide range of Jewish backgrounds, practices, and beliefs” were probably Woke enough to begin with.

(Mike Frisch)