Defamation Incident Impacts Lives of All Involved

Auto Admit was launched in 2004 by owner and creator Jarret Cohen as an online forum for current and prospective law students. The site receives well over 10,000 posts a day and has an estimated 700,000 unique readers per month. Even though Auto Admit touts itself as the world's most prestigious college discussion board, it has often drawn criticism for its offensive and defamatory content. In March 2007, TV news broadcasts and newspapers revealed that two female Yale Law School students alleged that defamatory postings about them had appeared in Auto Admit. The postings included lewd and derogatory comments, made false claims about the students' academic records, alleged that the students had performed sexual favors to gain admittance to Yale and to improve their grades, and made threats of violent attacks. One of the women alleged that the postings had cost her job offers. The reporting of the alleged harassment triggered a new and even more vicious wave of harassment against the two students. The postings went on for over two years. In June 2007, the students filed a lawsuit against Anthony Ciolli-a third-year law student at the University of Pennsylvania and AutoAdmit's chief education director at the time of the incident-and 28 anonymous posters for violation of privacy, defamation, and infliction of undue emotional distress. The lawyers for the plaintiffs were able to obtain John Doe subpoenas and learn the identities of some of the anonymous posters through various Internet service providers, even though AutoAdmit lacked any sort of IP number logging mechanism. Four months after filing, the plaintiffs dropped Ciolli from the lawsuit because of laws that protect Web site administrators from being sued over content posted on their sites. Ciolli also claimed that he did not have direct control over the content and that he tried to help the women.38 The uncovered anonymous posters show a wide range of reaction. One stated: "I said something really stupid on the [word deleted] Internet. I typed for literally, like, 12 seconds, and it devastated my life." After this poster's identity was made public, he gave up plans to attend law school and instead enlisted in the military. Another anonymous poster was concerned that he would lose his job if his identity was revealed and threatened to seek help online to corroborate all of the awful things that were said about the two women in order to defend himself. A third defendant had no remorse, considered the lawsuit to be frivolous, and was unconcerned because his parents' homeowner's policy would cover the cost of his defense.39 As this incident unfolded, Anthony Ciolli posted an online letter in which he and Jarret Cohen identified themselves as AutoAdmit's administrators. In the posting, they defended AutoAdmit's "free, uninhibited exchange of ideas." Subsequently, in an apparent change of heart, Ciolli resigned from AutoAdmit. Shortly thereafter, the managing partner at a prestigious Boston law firm stated that the firm had recently learned about the AutoAdmit controversy and Ciolli's involvement. The firm decided to revoke an offer of employment to Ciolli. In a letter to Ciolli, the managing partner stated that the contents of AutoAdmit are "antiethical" and violate the "principles of congeniality and respect that members of the legal profession should observe in their dealings with other lawyers. We expect any lawyer affiliated with our firm, when presented with the kind of language exhibited on the message board, to reject it and disavow any affiliation with it. You, instead, facilitated the expression and publication of such language." He went on to say that Ciolli's subsequent resignation from the site was "too late to ameliorate our concerns." 40 In his response to the managing partner, Ciolli said that he was "still in the process of assessing all the lessons to be learned from the incident [including] the importance of good judgment and proceeding with caution." He suggested that the law firm defer his start date by a year to "allow me time to develop a series of positive contributions to the legal community that would go a long way toward strengthening my reputation and allaying your concerns." 41 The managing partner responded that "none of the information you provided me resolves the concerns I expressed in my letter regarding your past affiliation with the site," and that the firm was revoking the employment offered to him. In March 2008, Ciolli launched his own lawsuit against the two Yale Law School students. He claims they wrongly included him as a defendant in their defamation suit brought in June 2007. Even though they dismissed him from the case four months later, he alleges his connection with the lawsuit caused him to lose a full-time position with a prestigious Boston law firm.42

Discussion Questions

1. Did the two law school students overreact in filing a lawsuit over these postings? What sort of penalties should be levied against the anonymous posters?

2. Did Anthony Ciolli act ethically in his response to the postings on Auto Admit; in his apparent "damage control" actions with the Boston law firm; in filing a lawsuit against the two Yale Law School students?

3. Do you think that the Boston law firm was right in revoking its job offer to Ciolli? Why or why not?