O'Malley v. Karkhanis [1]

Susan O'Malley, a Kingsborough Community College/City University New York (KCC/CUNY) English professor and faculty union representative, sued KCC/CUNY emeritus professor Sharad Karkhanis in December 2007 for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Karkhanis allegedly published defamatory statements about O'Malley in his online newsletter, "The Patriot Returns!! [2]" According to O'Malley's complaint [3], Karkhanis's statements accused her of

being a person of vicious, disreputable, criminal, and 'terrorist' character, who supports "terrorist activities" at the present time in the United States, who actively goes out of her way to help convicted criminals without any regard for the CUNY academic community, . . . who believes in those who preach and practice terrorism or violence and murder and has the ability and influence to secure jobs for criminal and "terrorists" instead of and at the expense of decent, upstanding citizens and law-abiding Americans. (Cpt.¶ 25)

O'Malley wrote to Karkhanis on April 18, 2007, demanding that he retract the defamatory material (see related CMLP database entry, O'Malley v. Karkhanis (Letter) [4]), a demand with which Karkhanis refused to comply. According to Karkhanis, his newsletter is satire. In the lawsuit, O’Malley seeks $2 million in general and punitive damages.

Update:

3/12/2008 - Karkhanis answered [5] O'Malley's complaint. 

6/18/2009 - According to the case information [6], the preliminary conference was held on January 20, 2009.

03/17/2010 - Inside Higher Ed reports [7] that the parties have settled the case.  As part of the settlement, Karkhanis issued a statement in his newsletter saying that he does not believe O'Malley to be a terrorist. In the comments to the Inside Higher Ed story, Karkhanis' lawyer posted the following clarification: "Sharad's statement is NOT an apology. The word apologize does not appear anywhere in the text, and the substance of the statement is clear that it is essentially an expression of regret if anyone misunderstood anything that had been published in The Patriot Returns."  You can find Karkhanis' statement here [8].