Pro Se Litigant Sues Nearly 100 Defendants In One Copyright Suit, Including Book Author and 28 Colleges and Universities.
On November 16th, 2024, Ralph W. Baker, Jr. ("Baker") filed a Pro Se lawsuit against almost 100 defendants at the same time. Twenty eight of these defendants are institutions of higher learning ("the Universities"). This blog post will focus primarily on the suit against the the Universities.
Baker alleges that a book he wrote, entitled Shock Exchange, was illicitly and systematically copied by the defendants, specifically in works such as The 1619 Project and associated documentaries and films. The Universities themselves were not cited as being explicitly complicit in this copying, but specific faculty members allegedly took part in the copying as "agents." Baker claims that the Universities where the faculty worked should have reasonably known their faculty were acting illegally and stopped them of their own accord. Notably, Baker does not introduce any evidence that the agents actually were involved in any copyright infringement, choosing instead to talk about the first two stated Defendants, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ibram X. Kendi, for the majority of the Complaint. For the higher education interests of this blog, the important question in this lawsuit is whether or not a university can be held liable for copyright infringement executed by an employee.
Baker has requested relief that is just as irregular as everything else about this lawsuit. In his Complaint, Baker requests that all Universities lose their non-profit status—back-dated to 2016— and that each department that hosted a faculty member involved in the alleged infringement lose its accreditation in perpetuity.
Courts are generally sympathetic to Pro Se litigants, but we will see how far that sympathy goes in a lawsuit that is irregular and controversial at nearly every point. We will provide an update for this case when the many defendants have had a chance to file responsive pleadings.