December 28, 2006

To: Mildred Dresselhaus
Chair, Governing Board
American Institute of Physics
One Physics Ellipse
College Park, Maryland 20740

Dear Dr. Dresselhaus:

We wrote to you last month seeking to discuss some disturbing actions
taken by the American Institute of Physics under your leadership.  As
physicists concerned about freedom of expression within the physics
community, we were troubled to learn that AIP is attempting to silence
fired physicist Jeff Schmidt and censor articles published by the
American Physical Society and the Canadian Undergraduate Physics
Journal.  These actions run counter to the values of the physics
community, which does not want to gag its members, suppress the
dissemination of ideas, or even appear to do either.  Your refusal to
discuss your actions with concerned constituents is disappointing and
leaves us no choice but to appeal to the members of the physics
community directly and individually, which we will do if we have not
heard from you by January 19, 2007.

As you know, AIP's responses to Jeff's expression in the Physics Today
workplace and book ended up backfiring.  That result should have been
a wake-up call for AIP, prompting the organization to embrace freedom
of expression.  But apparently it was not.

Thus, as a condition for settling the Schmidt case, AIP demanded
various types of censorship, including deletion of text from critical
articles published by the American Physical Society and the Canadian
Undergraduate Physics Journal.[1] AIP's deletions prompted the
Canadian Undergraduate Physics Journal to lodge a strong, public
protest[2], in which we plan to join.

And the American Institute of Physics is again attempting to silence
Jeff, using its superior wealth to try to bully him into silence about
the settlement agreement, despite its being a public document.

AIP's efforts to silence Jeff now span a decade.[3] The repressive
measures began when he was an AIP employee: first, a written gag
order; then a ban on private conversations in the workplace; and
finally, when those measures failed, dismissal.  Now, you have slapped
Jeff with a half-million-dollar legal action aimed at silencing him
and preventing physicists from discussing the settlement.

You claim in your legal action that various bits of text posted at the
disciplinedminds.com website have each done $20,000 worth of damage to
AIP, for a total of half a million dollars.  That your claims are
ridiculous may not matter to you, because, as you have made clear,
they are just a vehicle to force Jeff to hire a lawyer, and Jeff has
already incurred more than $20,000 in legal fees.

Your demands do, indeed, make the physics community look ridiculous
and undermine any claim that physicists have to valuing free
discussion and debate.  You claim, for example, that AIP suffered
$20,000 worth of damage because Jeff said the two words, "symbolic
reinstatement," and another $20,000 because he said the five words,
"Schmidt's concessions to AIP's demands."  It appears that you have
lost sight of the fact that free expression is the lifeblood of the
physics community and is central to the professional identity of
physicists.  Free expression within the physics community is not
subject to negotiation or to terms set by your lawyers.
(Nevertheless, we asked Jeff to check your claims with the American
Civil Liberties Union.  After reviewing the matter, Art Spitzer, legal
director of the ACLU for the Washington, D.C., region, told Jeff:
"Having looked at the public version of the settlement agreement and
their arbitration demand, my reaction is that what you said on your
web site is within your rights.")

It is disturbing that the American Institute of Physics has hired the
notorious union-busting law firm Jackson Lewis to go after Jeff and
silence him.  Writing on behalf of AIP, Jackson Lewis stated that if
Jeff would agree to refrain from "all commentary regarding the
settlement," then AIP would withdraw its legal action and Jeff would
not "have to retain new counsel or expend fees."  This confirms that
AIP's legal filing is what is known as a SLAPP action (strategic
lawsuit against public participation), a legal action whose primary
goal is to stifle discussion of matters of public interest.  Such
actions are so unethical that many jurisdictions, including Maryland,
have passed laws against them.

We find this repressive behavior unacceptable for an institution of
physics, which should represent physicists to the public as people who
come to the truth through free expression and discussion, not through
censorship and intimidation.  AIP must withdraw its SLAPP action,
reverse the damage that it has done, and end its censorship.

We are planning to thank the physics community for speaking out on
behalf of free expression in the Schmidt case.  As you can see from
this letter, we are fully prepared to add to our message and make a
public issue of AIP's censorship and its attempt to silence the
physicist whom it fired.  We prefer, of course, not to have to do
that, and so we are giving you an opportunity to make these issues
disappear, which you could do very easily.  We look forward to your
prompt reply.

Sincerely,

Denis Rancourt (dgr@uottawa.ca) for

Fay Dowker, Physics Department, Imperial College London, UK
Sanjoy Mahajan, Physics Department, University of Cambridge, UK
Talat Rahman, Physics Department, University of Central Florida
Denis Rancourt, Physics Department, University of Ottawa, Canada
George Reiter, Physics Department, University of Houston

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1. http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/#censored
2. http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sanjoy/schmidt/chronology/aipletter.pdf
3. http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/Schmidt/complaint.htm