Marathon Pundit: Marathon Pundit exclusive: Thomas Klocek case update

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Marathon Pundit exclusive: Thomas Klocek case update

A little more than three years ago, former DePaul professor Thomas Klocek's professional life was turned upside down when the 15 year adjunct was essentially fired from the school after defending Israel from some spurious attacks by some Muslim students there.

Klocek, a Roman Catholic, had a exemplary record in his decade and a half teaching at the Chicago Catholic university.

Here's an update on the legal front of the Klocek case:

Six counts have survived motions to dismiss, four of them defamation claims, and two involving invasion of privacy. Klocek's legal team at Mauck and Baker is well stocked with evidence to substantiate those claims.

A trial date is expected to be assigned at the end of this month, with the trial expected to last two weeks. From what I hear, Cook County courts are backlogged, but depending on the judge's calendar, the trial should begin within six months.

DePaul is playing hardball with Klocek and his legal team, making the ridiculous request to submit the former professor to three days of psychological testing.

To me, well, that's nuts. But we're talking about academics here, so no one should be surprised.

From Andy Norman, one of Klocek's attorneys:

We have a motion to dismiss two of the four affirmative defenses defendants have raised. Affirmative defenses are legal statements made by the defendants that say, in effect, that even if we prove our case against the defendants for defamation and invasion of privacy that there are reasons that the defendants still should prevail and we should lose.

In short, their affirmative defenses are (1) DePaul is not responsible for the DePaulia, which is independently run by students; (2) DePaul was permitted to defame Prof. Klocek because it was part of defendants' respective jobs to inform DePaul administrators, professors and students about the event of September 15, 2004; and DePaul's efforts to remedy the problem Prof. Klocek caused; (3) We made Prof. Klocek a public figure in March 2005 when we had the protest on the Lincoln Park campus and that the defendants cannot be responsible for defaming Prof. Klocek after that time because we caused him to be a public figure; (4) All the statements the defendants made about Prof. Klocek were substantially true and, therefore, not defamatory or invasion of privacy. We have moved to dismiss ## (1) and (2) on the grounds that the defenses are not plead clearly enough to allow us to answer, and a hearing on our motion is set for 12/18/07 at 9:30 am. We have answered ## (3) and (4) with denials.