Civil and Criminal violations are not the only things that are wrong.

For good reason, many wrong things are completely legal, and still should be condemned.

Of course, but that's not the case here. Doxxing this woman made Temple a better place to learn, and hopefully it made some people think twice before posting racist comments. I think this was the perfect outcome.

Did it make Temple a better place to learn? How can you know that? Was anyone having problems with her before? Is academia's march towards a highly policed speech environment a good thing for students? Even marginalized students?

> Did it make Temple a better place to learn? How can you know that?

If you are a journalism professor and are unable to recognise disinformation when you see it (e.g. Seth Rich conspiracy theories) then it calls your job competency into serious question. Yes, the firing would make Temple a better place to learn.

I saw one of the most accomplished physicists in the world unable to solve a (hard) first year Physics problem in Office Hours. He did it three times and got three different wrong answers, threw the chalk down and walked away and asked us to come back tomorrow. Does that mean he’s not qualified for his job?

Eh yes?

He was one of the three best teachers of any subject that I've ever had.

By what metric is academia marching towards a highly policed speech environment, though? I think that’s a line of attack against academia that has been parroted for decades, by referencing anecdotes such as this news story, while ignoring less newsworthy forces pushing in the opposite direction.

What are the forces pushing in the opposite direction? If you look at what happened to Erika Christakis or Bret Weinstein (try to ignore everything that Weinstein has become since then) it's hard to say that academia is not more highly policed than previously. Of course in some ways this is good, in that I recall some professors mercilessly ridiculing some students in front of the whole class, and of course professors having sex with some students which was always terrible but had no consequences until a few years ago.

This depends on exactly what you mean, but you can equally look at Nicole Hannah Jones for either the "reverse", or for an example of speech policing, but by the "other side".

> try to ignore everything that Weinstein has become since then

I feel like this is difficult to do. I'd sort of argue that "we caught a bad faith actor early" is a good thing. Maybe you could argue that Bret wouldn't be what he is today if he weren't fired, but I don't really find that convincing.

Please explain “marginalized students”.

They violated Disqus's terms of service, which is a civil violation.

I'm pretty sure violating the TOS isn't a civil violation.

It's a violation of the TOS. The recourse is Disqus cuts the offender's access (either the individual or the institution) for violating the TOS.

Sure but it’s not Disqus that is filing the suit. I’d be surprised if she has standing to claim damages based on an agreement she was not a party to.

The article explains she is suing for defamation. Google explains defamation has four elements:

1) a false statement purporting to be fact (he says she wrote what she says she didn't)

2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person (yes, the doxing)

3) fault amounting to at least negligence (maybe debatable, but he accused her of writing something knowing only that an account registered to her posted it. He never asked her about it and has already admitted fault in accusing her without asking.)

4) damages (yes, her career)

Sure, you can complain about that. But you said she was sloppily doxxed, which doesn't really seem to be the case. She was properly doxxed.

Not according to the lawsuit, she claims she didn’t make some of the comments. If that is true, then it was sloppy.