Asheville attorney Dean Shatley has emailed Ashvegas to request that a comment be removed from a recent blog post. You’ll find barrister Shatley’s note below.
The anonymous comment came on my blog post about the controversy over the video of Sandhill-Venable Elementary School students chanting “yes we can” during a school program earlier this year. The video claimed to show political indoctrination, the latest buzz words in partisan political attacks. The video went viral, and has been mentioned on several national news outlets.
The comment in question was critical of the school principal. I reviewed it, as I review every comment, before posting it. The comment appeared fine to me, and I posted it. The comment was certainly much less vitriolic and potentially damaging than hundreds, if not thousands, of comments I’ve seen posted on numerous other news organization web sites. Mr. Shatley, how many of these notes have you sent to the Asheville Citizen-Times?
I understand that in this case, there has been a bright national spotlight trained on the school. And because attorney Shatley has played the “kid card” and notes a concern over child safety, I’ve reluctantly decided to remove the comment.
From a quick web search, it appears that Dean Shatley and Chris Campbell left the local law firm of Roberts & Stevens to start their own firm, which specializes in education law. The firm notes that well-known local attorney Walter L. Currie will work for the new firm. Currie, who also used to work for Roberts & Stevens, has represented a huge number of local school systems: the Asheville City, Buncombe County, Henderson County and Madison County boards of education and the boards of trustees at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and Haywood Community College. He has also represented local housing authorities and a number of large local companies.
I’ve met Mr. Campbell in my coverage of AB-Tech, and found him to be as helpful and forthcoming as any attorney can be. Nice to meet you by email, Mr. Shatley.
Dear Sir/Madame,
We represent the Buncombe County Board of Education. On your site you have a link to the YouTube video regarding Sand-Hill Venable Elementary School. Below the short article are several comments from readers.
The comment posted by username Heaven is false, defamatory and may jeopardize the safety of school students and staff. On behalf of my client, I am asking you to please remove that comment immediately. Due to all the press associated with this event, some administrators have received death threats. Because of safety issues we feel it is in the best interest of the principal and the students at SHV that this comment be removed. If you would like to discuss this with me personally, please feel free to contact me at 828-378-0062. I have included a copy of the post below for your reference.
Thank you for this consideration.
Very Truly Yours,
Dean Shatley
K. Dean Shatley, II
Attorney
Campbell Shatley, pllc Attorneys at Law
674 Merrimon Avenue, Suite 210
Asheville, NC 28804
Direct Dial: 828.378.0062
T: 828.358.4520
F: 866.870.7204
dean@csedlaw.com
8 Comments
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edison henderson
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HUGE Congrats to Ms. McEntire and the entire Sand Hill-Venable staff for Ms. McEntire’s recognitions as principal of the year for Buncombe County Schools. It is nice to see that the small minded people of this world can not hinder the good people really do!
I like Homer’s comment, don’t remove it.
Sigh. Why do I always have to post this?
The First Amendment to the Constitution deals with the intrusion of the government into freedom of speech. It does not protect you from asshat attorneys. It does not protect you from people with bigger arms than you. It does not protect you from webmasters who run private websites.
What happened to the First Amendment …….
An unfortunate decision, IMO. A distortion of history. What your blog provides is a record of public opinion on a contentious issue. You’ve now acquiesced in an effort to reframe the event by one of the parties involved.
Who is served? Certainly not your readers, certainly not history.
A shameful event, IMO.
Did you offer Mr. Shatley space to respond? Did you ask Buncombe County Board of Ed to reply to the comment?
What threat expressed or implied made you give up your integrity so easily? Somehow I don’t think we have the whole story here.
Bummer. If it had been my blog, I would have told them to bring it on.
The way around this is to not moderate your comments (you assume responsibility for them by moderating them) and have a disclaimer that comments posted are the responsibility of the commenters.
I’ll blog about it on my blog since I subscribe via RSS and have the comment archived. This is a violation of the right to Free Speech.
hey dean shatley, homer says you are full of shat…