#MeToo journalist declares settlement agreement with UC Santa Barbara archaeologist accused of misconduct to be null and void [Updated Oct 23, 2021]

 

This past July, I settled a defamation suit against me, filed by University of California, Santa Barbara archaeologist Danielle Kurin in June 2020, as described in a blog post I published at the time. Kurin had sued me for my accurate and fully supported reporting about her history of misconduct.

Today I have sent the following notice to Kurin's attorney, David Scher of the Hoyer Law Group. The attachment referred to in this email is reproduced above.

October 20, 2021

Dear Mr. Scher,

This past weekend, your client, Danielle Kurin, blatantly violated the settlement agreement between me and her in at least two distinct ways.

Upon information and belief:

Using an anonymous account, Dr. Kurin posted, or directly caused to be posted, three comments on a long-running Reddit thread devoted to discussing allegations concerning her conduct over the past years. The link to this active thread is here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UCSantaBarbara/comments/ml2aaq/danielle_kurin_anthropology/

In one comment, Dr. Kurin or her direct representative made a defamatory attack against me, which was  screenshotted and is attached to this email.

In a second comment, Dr. Kurin attacked a witness in the Kurin v. Balter litigation, a former student of hers who had made a complaint to UCSB about bullying and other abuse she alleges took place in Dr. Kurin's osteology class in 2015 (the individual known as "Lara.)

In a third comment, Dr. Kurin attacked a former fellow graduate student at Vanderbilt, and included in the attack an email between that colleague and her parents concerning a landlord-tenant dispute that took place more than a decade ago (an email that only Dr. Kurin and her family would have had possession and knowledge of.)

Later that weekend, Dr. Kurin deleted the anonymous comments, and then followed on Sunday morning with a lengthy apologia for, and supposed refutation of, her alleged conduct, under her own name, responding to allegations that appeared only on my blog and represented only my reporting.

In the ensemble of these actions, Dr. Kurin repeatedly violated terms of the legally binding agreement.

1. She wrote about me directly on social media, something expressly forbidden by the agreement.

2. She disparaged me on social media, also expressly forbidden by the agreement.

3. She responded in detail to my reporting about her, also a violation of the spirit of the agreement if not the letter.

One might have hoped that after Dr. Kurin received tenure from UCSB, she would no longer feel the need to baselessly attack me, either in the courts or on social media, especially given the enormous support my reporting received during discovery in the lawsuit. Alas, she does not seem to be able to restrain herself, even though she no longer needs to fear the damages she falsely claimed I was causing her.

Under these circumstances, and by her actions, Dr. Kurin has invalidated the agreement between us.

I therefore declare the settlement agreement to be null and void, and I will no longer be bound by it, as of the date and time of this email.

With best regards,

Michael Balter

                                                            * * * *

Before it disappears, here is the text Kurin posted on the Reddit page Sunday morning. It is full of false statements and misinformation:

level 1

DanielleSKandCachi

·3d

Hi Folks, lots and lots of misinformation on this thread, and lots of cruelty between commenters.

To my students: I can understand how what you read about me online would make you scared and angry. If I read such things about someone I would feel the same way. But the overwhelming majority of what you read (especially the most abhorrent stuff) is just false (or at the very least it's been decontextualized to the point of being virtually meaningless).

If you feel scared or uncomfortable, just talk to me--bring a friend if you'd like. We can also arrange to have a mediator present. I just want you to be able to fully engage and enjoy the class and feel safe in our interactions.

I don't fake being a good teacher, I am a good teacher. I lift my students up because they are hard workers and good human being who deserve compassion and support. It's not an act. My 'charm' isn't a manipulative tactic. I do hold adults accountable, and I have a strong personality, and that has been the source of some tension--and you can see that frustration in the comments.

Let me be perfectly clear. I never harassed or abused anyone, nor did I ever enable or condone such behavior by anyone.

My alleged act of retaliation? I wrote an email to a third party that was totally unrelated to allegations of misconduct, that included a line saying, "I'm sure your reputation will precede you." That's it. My letter of censure -- the most mild form of punishment available -- came after years of a flawed investigation (during which time I was on leave, as is standard). The letter was rightly expunged from my record and I was granted those years back on the tenure clock, and my funding was reinstated. I was awarded tenure, deservedly so.

Update Oct 22, 2021: There are a great number of outstanding issues related to the Danielle Kurin matters, which I plan to cover in an upcoming blog post or series of posts, as necessary. In the meantime, I have pinned a thread to my Twitter page laying out what I see as the most important questions. I hope that blog readers will navigate over to that thread and share it if they like.

Afterthoughts Oct 23, 2021: The defense that Kurin posted on Reddit, reproduced just above, suggests that she is still refusing to take responsibility for her past actions, despite the existence of so much evidence that they took place. The blog entry linked to at the beginning of this post includes the full text of the Letter of Censure, which Kurin signed in agreeing to take formal responsibility for her actions. Although the letter was removed from her personnel file after three years, the charges brought against her by UCSB—the result of the university’s lengthy investigation—still stand as a record of what she did and what she acknowledged having done, which included multiple charges of retaliation against students. Readers should not be fooled by this clumsy sleight of hand and Kurin’s current efforts to erase the record.