… you will recall, threatened to sue Harper’s Magazine over an article about the university’s notorious budget problems. Cooler heads – i.e., students – prevailed, and the suit (Joshua Reinharz darkly suggested that “that the article’s author, Christopher R. Beha, was motivated to write an article casting Brandeis’ finances in a negative light because his aunt Ann Beha’s architectural firm was rejected by the University in its bid for a 2004 building project.”) never happened.
But universities continue to make this sort of mistake, with Canada’s York the latest example. Again a university has taken umbrage at a magazine article – in this case, an article which called the campus “a hunting ground for sexual predators.”
That’s strong language, to be sure, but I suspect “literary license” covers it, and, in any case, a lawsuit costs a lot of money and will ultimately be a high-profile way of keeping the issue of campus safety in the news.