Daily Nebraskan - Libel case

Libel case against Daily Nebraskan dismissed

By Frannie Sprouls Published: Wednesday, October 5, 2011 Updated: Wednesday, October 5, 2011 22:10

A Lancaster County judge dismissed the libel lawsuit against the Daily Nebraskan on Wednesday.

Third District Judge Jodi Nelson said at the end of the trial that in public libel cases, the law is clear: The plaintiff must prove

the statement published was false and the maker of the statements has serious doubts the statement was false at the publication date.

There was no evidence of the legal standard presented during the trial, Nelson said.

“The judge has to make a decision based on the evidence,” said Robert Prokop, a former University of Nebraska regent. “Obviously, she made that decision in that way.”

The lawsuit began in October 2007 when Prokop filed against the Daily Nebraskan for a staff editorial published Oct. 24, 2006.

The editorial, titled “Regents must be held to high standards,” mentioned a guest column written by Prokop in the early 1970s and said Prokop plagiarized the article.

A few weeks after the editorial was published, a new regent was elected to the NU Board of Regents. Prokop, who ran for a position against current regent Jim McClurg, lost the election.

In the lawsuit, Prokop stated the editorial had “inexcusably exposed (him) to public hatred and dislike” and caused him to not be elected to the Board of Regents.

Prokop, who represented himself, sought $700,000 in damages.

The judge dismissed the case before Shawn Renner, the attorney representing the Daily Nebraskan, presented his case, and the only witnesses questioned were those chosen by Prokop. Those witnesses were McClurg and his wife Lori McClurg, the director of operations and marketing at the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management; Don Walton, adviser to

the Daily Nebraskan; Gary Seacrest, former editor of the Daily Nebraskan in the fall of 1971; Dan Shattil, the general manager of the Daily Nebraskan, and Prokop.

The DVD of Jenna Johnson’s deposition was shown to the jury. Johnson served as the editor of the Daily Nebraskan in 2006

and now works for The Washington Post. Chancellor Harvey Perlman and former chancellor Martin Massengale were issued subpoenas for Wednesday but neither came to the trial.

McClurg did not know why he was called to the stand by Prokop.

“Dr. Prokop is running this case because he brought this suit against the Daily Nebraskan,” McClurg said. “I’m not sure why he

called me.”

Prokop needed to prove the statement published was false, the column he wrote in the 1970s was brought to question.

In the fall of 1971, the Daily Nebraskan published a set of four stories about homosexuality in Lincoln, a controversial topic at that time.

Prokop submitted a guest column to the Daily Nebraskan toward the end of the fall 1971 semester about homosexuality as a disease. But the Daily Nebraskan never published the column.

On Jan. 14, 1972, the Douglas County Gazette published the column written by Prokop and included a note saying the Daily Nebraskan had refused to publish the column.

The Daily Nebraskan published an article on Feb. 10, 1972, comparing Prokop’s article to a book written by Edmund Bergler, M.D., in 1957 titled “Homosexualtiy: Disease or Way of Life.”

A controversy arose on campus: The 1972 Faculty Senate made a motion to censure Prokop, and the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska passed a resolution urging the NU Board of Regents to issue a statement condemning plagiarism.

“There was never complaints or corresponding comments to the Board of Regents at the board meeting,” Prokop testified on Wednesday. “It never was touched whatsoever.”

Despite the controversy the column created, Prokop was never given a hearing concerning the plagiarism. He said the other

regents mentioned in the 2006 editorial were given hearings, yet there were not any attempts to relieve him of his position on the Board of Regents.

Throughout questioning his witnesses, Prokop consistently asked about the policies of the Board of Regents.

“There are no retention policies with individuals on the Board of Regents,” Prokop explained after the trial. “There’s no set policy as to plagiarism and absolutely no policy when I was on the board.”

When Renner questioned Prokop about plagiarizing his guest column, Prokop said he did copy all but the first and last couple paragraphs.

Prokop also said nowhere in the article was it attributed to Bergler, the author. The disclaimer wasn’t printed along with the column, Prokop said.

How the Daily Nebraskan editorial board was informed about Prokop’s column in the 1970s was also questioned.

Shattil testified that a packet containing the 1972 articles were given to him by Barb Derrick, a partner with the marketing firm Research Associates. At that time, Research Associates supported McClurg’s Board of Regent’s campaign.

Shattil gave the packet to the editorial board and the articles were eventually mentioned in the Oct. 24, 2006 editorial.

An issue during the trial was the focus on what happened in 1971 and 1972. Some questions could not be answered, because

the witnesses couldn’t recall what happened.

With the evidence presented, Shattil said he had no doubts at any time during the trial. It was clear to Shattil that Prokop couldn’t win the case.

“I hope we have put this all behind us,” Shattil said. “This is 40 years of history.” franniesprouls@dailynebraskan.com

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