SLAPP Happy?

An art school shuts down a gripe site with a lawsuit.

by Holly Otterbein

THE SMOKING GUN: Because nothing is ever really gone on the Internet, this is a screen grab of the website that prompted Hussian School of Art to sue ex-student Marc Hummel for $150,000.

[ litigation ]

One day in late 2008, Bruce Wartman Googled "Hussian School of Art."

As director of Hussian, a trade school in Old City, this event was wholly ordinary, except for one detail: Wartman conducted the search to investigate a rumor he'd heard about an ex-student named Marc Hummel, a rumor he dreaded was true.

Pity for him, it was. Among the first few results the search engine produced, right alongside the school's official website, was hussian.marchummel.com, a gripe site published by Hummel, a former, salty Hussian student who dropped out in '07 after two semesters.

The heading of Hummel's site said it all: "I made the mistake of going to Hussian School of Art for a year and fully regret it. I'm writing this to save you the trouble."

On the minimalist, Helvetica-laden site, Hummel pontificated for more than 1,000 words about his dissatisfaction with Hussian, calling it "bland" and "embarrassing," alleging that its teachers were unprofessional and its curriculum was myopic, and recommending that, above all, interested students "go somewhere else!"

"I didn't do it out of revenge," Hummel told City Paper in early May. "I just wanted people who were thinking about going to Hussian to know that I had a bad experience there." He adds that when he was first checking out the school, he found little information about it outside of Hussian's own rosy site, and wished he'd heard more independent voices before enrolling.

For a while, Hummel's site was met with nothing but positive feedback and online camaraderie. The commenter "Carissa" posted that "reading this basically made my decision for me" — that decision being to go somewhere else. Other commenters were happy to simply lament about their time at the school: "I went to Hussian and wasted 4 years of my life. I am at the same skill level I was when I was in highschool (sic)," wrote "Julianne." A commenter named "JD" added, "Great site. It's nice to see someone standing up for the disenchanted."

This is, needless to say, not the kind of thing an art school director wants to see. Which is why, nearly a year and a half later, the Hussian School of Art sued Hummel, a current Rutgers student and coffee shop employee, for $150,000. On the surface, this looks to be what's known as a SLAPP suit, or a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, in which large companies hush critics by threatening them with defense costs and court battles. Twenty-seven states, including Pennsylvania, have enacted some sort of anti-SLAPP legislation.

Hussian emphatically denies that it's a SLAPP suit, but it doesn't matter, anyway. In Pennsylvania, the anti-SLAPP law applies only to environmental cases.

Despite the fact that Google's algorithm took a liking to Hummel's site, Wartman and other administrators ignored it for several months. But that came to an end in September 2009, when Hummel received a threatening letter from Howard M. Soloman, Hussian's attorney at the time.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

"This website is filled with defamatory statements about Hussian," Soloman wrote. "This is unlawful Internet defamation and you must shut down that site immediately. Failure to do so could result in damages being assessed against you."

Hummel didn't oblige. He did, however, add a few disclaimers, as well as a copy of the letter he received from the school, to his site. In March, the school pushed back, filing a lawsuit against Hummel over defamation and trademark infringement charges. It sought $150,000 in damages.

Wartman and Hussian's current attorney, Kevin M. Drucker, say that while some of the site was plumb opinion, a portion of it was factually incorrect and defamatory. For instance, Hummel wrote that, "Most of the teachers at Hussian hold certificates, not degrees." In fact, Drucker says, "All of the teachers hold degrees." (The school doesn't list its faculty or their credentials on its website.) Furthermore, Hummel alleged that Hussian "doesn't teach you typography at all," while Drucker says it's a required course.

Where the school sees malice, Hummel sees literary effect. "It was hyperbole," he said of the post about typography. "Obviously they touch on that subject. What I was saying is that I don't think they teach it well."

Asked why the school didn't first demand that Hummel take down the allegedly defamatory posts — rather than demanding he take down the site altogether — Drucker is roundabout. He says Hussian might have taken this route if Hummel had only been more "responsive" throughout. "He never came back and said he was willing to take defamatory things out of his site," says Drucker. "He brought this on himself."

An interview with Wartman, however, suggests that Hussian is troubled by more than the alleged untruths on Hummel's site. Unprompted, Wartman brings up a post in which Hummel wrote that the school admits 95 percent of its applicants: "They hype up the portfolio process every student must undergo to an incredible degree, making the school seem much more prestigious than it actually is."

Wartman says the school has a high acceptance rate "because we have a very specific audience. But he paints this to be derogatory."

Does the school admit 95 percent of applicants, though?

"It could be 90 or 95 or 99, depending on the year."

So you don't disagree with that part of the statement?

"I disagree with his delivery of that information. That might be factual, but he makes it seem derogatory."

If you go to hussian.marchummel.com today, you won't find a peep about the Hussian School of Art. After Hummel removed that portion of the site earlier this spring, it now exclusively showcases his résumé and artistic endeavors. Hummel stopped speaking with City Paper in early May, when he began negotiating a settlement with the school outside of court. (He enlisted the help of a pro bono lawyer.)

"They're doing this to silence me," he said several weeks before ceasing contact. "I think it's pretty strange for an art school to want to do that."

Drucker, however, says "this certainly isn't a SLAPP suit."

Perhaps not. But the end result is the same.

(holly.otterbein@citypaper.net)