Privacy

In Kentucky until last week, even a goldfish theoretically had some right of privacy. After what happened in the Common Pleas Branch of the 30th District Circuit Court in Louisville last week and unless the Kentucky Court of Appeals reverses the decision, though a goldfish may still have that right, a teacher in a tax-supported school or college lacks it.

Two years ago, an American Legionary calling socially on a friend in a Louisville bank, saw on his desk a canceled check from the State Bank of the U.S.S.R. payable to Dr. Ellis Freeman, professor of psychology at the University of Louisville. The Legionary sidled off to a corner in the bank, scribbled down what he had observed, showed it to Legion superiors who quickly published the charge that Professor Freeman "has received and cashed a check for $172.41, the equivalent of 199.5 rubles, from the State Bank of the U.S.S.R. at Moscow; that Professor Freeman has been soliciting subscriptions to Communistic literature." Investigations by the university's board of trustees exonerated Dr. Freeman, and last week he was suing for $100,000 for "damage to his. privacy," haling two Legionaries and two bankers before Circuit Judge Eugene Hubbard.

Cross-examination waxed so heated that spectators left their seats, circled the defense attorney and the plaintiff as questions disclosed that the check was a routine interest payment on $9,998 of Soviet bonds which Dr. Freeman had purchased for his mother's estate; that Dr. Freeman had been Boston-born Abram Ellis Friedman until he changed his name in 1923 "because I thought it stood as a handicap".; that Dr. Freeman believed "to talk about God, you must first create an image, and then talk about the image you have created"; that Dr. Freeman in his book Social Psychology, had reported that "St. Paul's source of influence may be attributed to epileptic fits, and Joan of Arc's to hysterical attacks."

At trial's end Judge Hubbard directed a verdict for the defendants. His ruling was a warning to other Kentucky public educators: "As a teacher in a municipal university supported by public taxes, Dr. Freeman has no privacy to be molested. . . . These gentlemen of the American Legion did nothing that any citizen doesn't have the right to do; they inquired into the character and record of a teacher and the things he taught our young people. They are to be commended."

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