Sentence from Judge Jeffrey Schmehl Manco v. Saint Joseph’s University (Pennsylvania Department of Education):
On February 25, 2021, Lue tweeted the following at SJU: “But are you going to fire Greg Manco? He has done nothing but promote racism, sexism, and transphobia. Hostile learning environment? SJU responded to Loue’s tweet, saying “Saint Joseph’s College continues to strive to be a welcoming, diverse and inclusive community. The school acted quickly to investigate reports of bias, harassment and other incidents.” The plaintiff later claimed “Loue was never the student’s name, Dr. Manco, and knew the tweet was false.
Similar to previous motions to dismiss filed by other student defendants and ruled by this Court in a January 25, 2024 opinion, Loe argued that her February 25, 2021 tweets were absolutely privileged because she conveyed Regulations or regulations. However, Lu’s instant tweets differ from privileged communications between SJU students and specific individuals involved in the investigative process. A generic tweet targeting a private university was not found to be intended to open an investigation.
In the January 25, 2024 opinion, I found that examples of student communications entitled to immunity were emails and direct communications with specific individuals at SJU, not just random public tweets. Therefore, Lu’s tweet was not entitled to immunity.
Additionally, I find that her tweet may be defamatory because someone viewing the SJU Twitter account could read the tweet and assume that the accuser is racist, sexist, and/or transphobic. Therefore, Lu’s motion to dismiss his February 25, 2021 tweet based on immunity was denied.
Defendant Loue also seeks to have the plaintiff’s false light claims dismissed. Under Pennsylvania law, to allege misrepresentation, a plaintiff “must allege facts that demonstrate that the posted material is untrue, highly offensive to a reasonable person, and was posted with knowledge or reckless disregard for its falsity.”
Whether the allegations in Lu’s tweets are true is debatable, but in the light most favorable to Manco, they could be read as suggesting that Manco is potentially racist, sexist, and/or transphobic . This is undoubtedly a negative hint. In the light most favorable to Manco, even if Lu’s tweets were true, the “discrete statements” could have put the plaintiffs in the wrong light. Therefore, that claim will also be allowed to stand.
Next, Lu sought to dismiss the plaintiff’s tortious interference claim. First, accepting as true all of the allegations in the second amended complaint, I believe that plaintiff has presented sufficient facts at this stage of the litigation to permit discovery to proceed on his claim of tortious interference with Loue’s contract. Manco argued that the student defendants “engaged in … efforts to have Dr. Manco suspended and terminated.” It can be argued that these student activities allegedly interfered with Manco’s employment contract and were not justified. Therefore, I will allow this assertion to be reserved for Loue….
Note that many courts have held that general accusations of racism, anti-Semitism, and similar behavior, or communist issues, are opinions and therefore cannot be libel, but accusations that someone has done racist or other bigoted behavior (or are Communist Party or other group) is considered factual and therefore potentially defamatory. To quote Judge Schmel’s previous opinion,
Defamation is a cause of action under state law, so which statements can be considered defamatory must comply with Pennsylvania law. In Pennsylvania, “a simple allegation of racism is not enough.” A charge of racism must imply something more, such as suggesting that “the defendant personally violated the law in a racist manner.” exist McCrearyFor example, there was a prosecutable charge of racism because the defendant referred to the district attorney as “Duke David of Chester County,” a statement that “suggested that he unlawfully abused the power of the district attorney, an elected office, to further racism. ”. See also Wolverton v. Padgett-Patterson (MD Pa. 2022) (Finding that plaintiff’s allegations regarding defendant’s Facebook posts accusing him of racism and publicly naming him a racist were not actionable in a defamation action)….
“Pure opinions cannot be defamed.” Based on the view that “the facts revealed are absolutely privileged, no matter how derogatory they may be.” “This is true even if a point is deeply derogatory, such as calling another person’s remarks ‘anti-Semitic.'” However, it may reasonably be understood that “an opinion suggesting undisclosed defamatory facts may support a cause of action based on those unenumerated facts.”
