Press Releases: Crossing the line

Published in the Portland Phoenix

When an increasingly conservative newspaper company fires an already publicly conservative employee for apparently offending a liberal interest group, it leaves some people scratching their heads.

Larry Grard, a self-described Christian who told Fox News last week that he was "the lone conservative wolf" in the Morning Sentinel newsroom, was fired November 10 after 18 years at the paper.

Grard, amplified by coverage from Fox News and various Christian-right bloggers, is claiming he was fired for his conservative views opposing same-sex marriage, which in turn are based on his religious beliefs.

His paper and its sisters, the Portland Press Herald and the Kennebec Journal, editorialized in favor of same-sex marriage in November's election, with owner Richard Connor's support. But Connor's viewpoints are generally conservative: He endorsed John McCain in the November 2008 presidential election, and has opposed the public option as an obstacle to progress in the healthcare reform debate.

But Grard's offense was not that he upset the political apple cart. He himself says he was openly conservative in the newsroom for years. And his name is also listed on the Maine Marriage Alliance Web site as part of a group "coming together to amend the Maine Constitution to define marriage as the union of one woman and one man."

Rather, Grard knowingly crossed an ethical line, and is now upset at the consequences.

The morning of November 4, the day after Maine's same-sex marriage law was repealed, Grard arrived at work and found an e-mail message from the DC-based pro-gay Human Rights Campaign, quoting HRC president Joe Solmonese as saying "Although we lost our battle in Maine, we will not allow the lies and hate — the foundation on which our opponents built their campaign — to break our spirits."

Upset, he wrote a reply from his personal e-mail account (though on a company computer): "Who are the hateful, venom-spewing ones? Hint: not the yes on 1 crowd. You hateful people have been spreading nothing but vitriol since this campaign began. Good riddance!" Grard signaled that he knew he was crossing a line, by trying to make his e-mail message anonymous, by not signing his name or identifying his employer. But he either didn't realize or simply forgot that the message would include his name as the sender.

Trevor Thomas, the Human Rights Campaign employee who received the note, Googled Grard's name and then sent the message to Morning Sentinel editor Bill Thompson with a complaint — though not a demand for his firing or any other discipline, according to both Thomas and Kathy Munroe, administrative officer for the Portland Newspaper Guild, which represents Grard and most of the other employees at the company's papers.

Thompson fired Grard for "a serious breach of the legitimate employee and journalistic expectations of Company management," according to a two-page company statement on the matter. (Read the full statement at thePhoenix.com/AboutTown.) Munroe, who says Grard had no history of disciplinary problems, says the Guild offered, on Grard's behalf, to accept without objection a lesser disciplinary action for a first offense, such as a reprimand or a suspension without pay, but got nowhere.

The Guild has filed a grievance objecting to the firing on procedural grounds, but distances itself from claims of viewpoint discrimination. "We're not seeing this as pro-gay-marriage or anti-gay-marriage," Munroe says. "This is an internal contractual dispute."

But Connor is caught in a deeply ironic trap. Either Grard stays fired and conservative Connor is labeled anti-conservative, or Grard is reinstated and Connor thereby suggests that Grard was fired for his views — not his poor judgment about when, how, and to whom he expressed them. Whatever the outcome, it won't be a banner day for freedom of speech.

Hat tip to Al Diamon.

GNU and the free-software movement: You may not know it, but the free-software movement has changed your life

Published at thePhoenix.com

You use Firefox for Web browsing. You know it's a free Web browser that's safe, quick, and has all kinds of add-on modules (there are thousands of these — for chatting, bookmark management, social networking, image-processing, and even federal court-file browsing — at addons.mozilla.org). It has frequent updates to fix bugs, and every new version seems to find a new cool way to make the Web easier.

Thank Richard Stallman and the GNU project for all of those things. Apart from their programming skills, the genius of all their work is really the GNU General Public License (GPL), the legalese rubber where the free-software movement hits the intellectual-property-law road.

The GPL is one of several "copyleft" efforts, in which creators assert their copyright to something, but only for the purpose of ensuring that it — and any future works based on it — can always be distributed for free. (People can, and do occasionally, charge for their adaptations, but there's a disincentive: anyone who pays for it can, under the license, turn around and give it away for free themselves.)

It is legally different from placing a work in the "public domain," from which any person can take, repackage, and sell freely (that's how book publishers can reprint Shakespeare's plays, for example, and charge for copies). The GPL is a license to a user from a copyright holder, granting permission to use the material, but only under certain conditions (namely, free distribution of anything made with the material).

For example, while Firefox development is not coordinated by the GNU group, it uses some basic code that was first created by them. Programmers don't often want to bother creating the nuts and bolts — they want to make the machine. So they reach for the nuts and bolts, locate GNU-created free code, and find themselves in GPL-land, where all code is free, but all modification or adaptation of that code is also free. They are effectively enlisted in the free-software movement, even if their users don't know it.

Not all programmers want to start with GNU-created code (or something built on its foundations). Some actually do start from scratch and write all their own stuff. But the GPL is available to them, too — they just have to declare that.

It is the GPL that allows all of this — it is the key to the success, expansion, and future growth of the free-software movement. Courts in the US, Germany, and France have upheld the license's terms, requiring people who were charging for the software to stop doing so, and enabling out-of-court negotiations with companies that have also succeeded in affirming the GPL.

Many programs — even those on Windows or Mac platforms (against which Stallman rails) — are GPL-covered. The GPL is not only more widespread than GNU/Linux machines, but has the power to invade and co-opt those private platforms, making them more open over time, and showing developers and users alike the possibilities of open and free software.

Go to gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html for more information.

On the Ropes Dept.: Catching up with FairPoint’s decline

Published in the Portland Phoenix

We've been telling you for ages how bad the FairPoint deal was for residents of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. To avoid beating a nearly-dead horse, we've held off on reporting some things for a while, but it's time for a quick catch-up on several fronts.

Most importantly, after months of narrow escapes, FAIRPOINT FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION in late October, seeking a federal judge's permission to turn over most of its debt to its lenders and try to restructure itself out of the deep debt and operations troubles the North Carolina-based company is mired in.

That was after seeking $30 MILLION IN CONCESSIONS FROM UNION WORKERS in northern New England. (You may remember that way back when FairPoint was trying to close this deal, it promised to stick to Verizon's old contract, and state regulators believed them, despite union representatives' fears to the contrary.)

Shortly after the bankruptcy filing, several of FairPoint's biggest lenders asked the judge to appoint an investigator to determine, as the lenders argued in court filings, IF THE COMPANY'S DIRECTORS AND TOP EXECUTIVES WERE TRYING TO PROFIT PERSONALLY FROM THE BANKRUPTCY. The lenders also alleged that company officials were not completely honest about the company's financial prospects, and paid out millions in dividends to shareholders, and to a key vendor, depriving the company of cash that might have helped avoid bankruptcy.

Great Works Internet, the Biddeford-based Internet company that featured prominently in the opposition to the FairPoint-Verizon deal, has revealed that a dispute with FairPoint that began in the Verizon days threatens its business. Apparently, the companies never agreed on what price GWI should pay to Verizon for using certain types of Verizon-owned circuits for Internet traffic; now, unless GWI caves and forks over millions in alleged back payments, FAIRPOINT IS THREATENING TO CUT OFF GWI from portions of FairPoint's network. This is already in court, where, naturally, GWI is asking that FairPoint be barred from cutting off service until the matter is resolved.

FairPoint's requests for $38 MILLION IN FEDERAL STIMULUS MONEY to expand broadband connectivity in northern New England have RECEIVED STATE OFFICIALS' BLESSING in all three states (see "Here Comes the FairPoint Bailout," by Jeff Inglis, September 4).

Despite that prospect of additional cash (and because the bankruptcy filing has called the wisdom of such grants into question), FAIRPOINT HAS ADMITTED IT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FULFILL THE BROADBAND-EXPANSION PROMISES it made, which were crucial to convincing state regulators to approve the deal, and has ASKED THE FEDERAL BANKRUPTCY JUDGE TO RULE THAT THOSE COMMITMENTS WERE NOT REALLY PROMISES AT ALL (though they carry the power of state law), but soft agreements that can be renegotiated. That almost certainly means delays in rolling out broadband — if FairPoint were going to meet its deadlines, it wouldn't be seeking the additional negative attention associated with breaking its word.

In mid-October, FairPoint announced it was HIRING 45 NEW CUSTOMER-SERVICE EMPLOYEES to be based in a Portland call center, in hopes of improving the company's disastrous service record, which has been criticized by customers, regulators, and lawmakers in all three northern New England states. The company claims it has created 400 new jobs in Maine, but has not drawn much attention to the fact that its business plan anticipated four percent of all workers, including new hires, leaving each year and not being replaced (see "No Raises — It Gets Better," by Jeff Inglis, November 20, 2007).

We can be sure things will get worse before they get better, largely because of the jurisdictional disputes that are almost certain to arise between a federal judge in New York City and regulators, lawmakers, and courts in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. If we had to make a prediction, it would be that this will end up before the United States Supreme Court before rural northern New England gets FairPoint's brand of broadband connectivity — which the rest of the country is already phasing out.

Press Releases: Campaign crash

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The single biggest factor contributing to the repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine was how pro-marriage forces used — or failed to use — the media to their advantage. The No On 1 campaign was experienced — the same groups, led mostly by the same people, won the Maine Won't Discriminate campaign in 2005. It was well funded, as it was four years ago. And again it was defending an existing law enacted by the Legislature and signed by the governor.

But as the campaign to save same-sex marriage from a California-style repeal wore on, it became more diffuse, less focused, and, ultimately, too negative to win.

At the beginning, the No On 1 message was clear and defined: this was about love, family, fairness, and equality.

But while that message stayed constant among the volunteers doing the calling and street work, the campaign's official statements and advertising strayed very far, giving the campaign a public persona that was not loving, warm, or open — but rather, at times, defensive, dismissive, and annoyed.

The Yes On 1 campaign claimed that "homosexual marriage will be taught in Maine schools" (which was loose code for "your kids will be taught gay sex"). But No On 1 did not produce any of the countless Maine teachers who would have said publicly that no matter the outcome of the election, they would always teach what they had always taught: that all students, and all families, have value, and that all people deserve love and understanding, no matter how different they are from us.

Rather, No On 1 got defensive and expressed "outrage" at the ridiculous claims, which — as polls showed — the public wasn't buying. No On 1 even aired TV ads — by far its most expensive and widest-reaching resource — attacking the Yes On 1 message and leadership. (Beyond confusing the point, it violated Rule 1 of campaigning: "If you're talking about them, you're losing.")

And after those ads started airing, the poll results shifted. After No On 1 validated those utterly false claims by repeating them, the fear-of-education message began to take hold. (That confirms Rule 2 of campaigning: "Message repetition is vital. It doesn't matter by whom.")

Some positive, hopeful, family-oriented ads from No On 1 also aired sporadically, embodying the best spirit of the No campaign — declaring that Maine is and should remain a tolerant, loving place where people do not discriminate. But the lack of focus on this core message meant it took time to sink into the public mind.

When it did, it was too late. With less than a week to go, the Yes On 1 campaign showed its first sign of weakness, even backpedaling. New ads promoted the state's domestic-partner registry (creation of which the Catholic Church, a Yes On 1 backer, had strenuously opposed), saying people could support "traditional marriage" and still protect people's civil rights. Those were admissions that the equality message was finally taking effect.

Imagine if the No campaign had spent all its money and time standing on principle, moving on offense: "Some people want to overturn a law that our Legislature passed and our governor signed. That law is an important one granting vital civil rights to a minority population who have been discriminated against for too long."

Even ads asking "What minority are you?" would have been amazing: "How would you feel if someone tried to deny you the right to marry, just because you're left-handed (or blue-eyed, or blond-haired)? You'd vote No too."

But ultimately, the No campaign was too slow, Yes didn't have to respond until too late, and the No campaign never unleashed the most devastating counterattack they had available: the "separate is not equal" message that very well could have carried the day in the state that Won't Discriminate.

Litigation Watch: Ex-USM staffers claim age discrimination

Published in the Portland Phoenix

In complaints filed with the University of Southern Maine's Office of Campus Diversity and Equity, a state legislator and five former colleagues allege they were discriminated against in a recent department restructuring because of their ages. The complainants' ages range between 56 and 63.

Chad Hansen, the attorney representing all six — including state senator Larry Bliss, the former director of the career services office — says while he is at "just the very beginning of the process," additional complaints have been filed through the USM employees' union, and filings are in the works with the Maine Human Rights Commission, a possible prelude to a settlement or lawsuits.

In the restructuring, which combined three departments tasked with helping students handle academics, plan for careers, and handle non-academic issues, eliminated 21 jobs and created 19 new ones — but left six of the new slots vacant — "all the older folks were let go; the younger folks were retained," Hansen says, which "totally stripped the system" of experienced people.

A big part of the problem for the complainants is the six positions left unfilled — "it's not as if they're saying, 'we had to make tough choices between good people,'" Hansen says. The university just simply didn't hire anyone for those positions, though they "hired back all of the younger folks," he says.

Messages left for Daryl McIlwain, associate director of Campus Diversity and Equity, were returned by USM's public affairs department. Spokesman Bob Caswell says three departments — one each handling academic advising, career counseling, and non-academic student needs — were merged into the Office of Student Success, in "one of the most significant reorganizations of an administrative structure ever undertaken here."

Caswell says the search was "open and fair" and found to be equitable by human-resources staff at USM and the wider University of Maine System, as well as by representatives of the employees' union.

While Caswell says the purpose was to improve student retention and graduation and "was never to save money," he did admit that the six unfilled positions were left "open for budgetary reasons." The university has faced budget crunches and student-retention problems for years.

"Advising has kind of been like a nightmare for me," says student Matt Dodge, describing requirements that students meet with advisors before registering for classes each semester, and frequent changes in who his advisor is.