Home Education Magazine Sept-Oct, 2011 : Page 3
Publisher’s Note Helen Hegener The Lawsuit Readers of this magazine may be aware of the lawsuit and claim for damages that was filed last year by cyberschool owner Mimi Roth-schild, her husband Howard Mandel, and their business, the Learning by Grace family of online academies. The lawsuit was initially filed against homeschool-ing mother Heather Idoni, and the complaint was subsequently amended to add me, HEM pub-lisher Helen Hegener, to the lawsuit. They initially claimed they had been defamed by our cri-tique of their business practices. Now they are seeking the court's permission to assert an additional claim alleging that Idoni and I have committed "antitrust" viola-tions by expressing our opinions about them. As we go to press, the court has not given them permis-sion. Readers may also be aware of Mimi Rothschild's increasingly threatening and damaging state-ments and other actions against me and many other individuals. Foremost among these was her successful efforts to compromise the Home Education Magazine web site in early September, which has resulted in the collapse of our site, the failure of our online ordering system, and innumerable customer service problems. As this issue goes to press we are still resolving serious problems associ-ated with this situation, but by the time this issue reaches our readers we should have a fully functioning web site once again. Over the past several weeks Mimi Rothschild has penned a series of vituperative blog posts defaming me, my family, and who-ever Mimi has thought might be connected, supporting, related to or in any way associated with Home Education Magazine. The posts, which display outrageous rhetoric and unreasonable accusa-tions, are a rather transparent attempt to create a bargaining chip with which to force me to remove the single 2008 HEM editorial which describes Mimi Rothchild's attempts to, as she clearly stated at the time, "take over homeschool-ing." Mimi Rothschild's sad and mean-spirited blog posts stand in mute testimony to her own charac-ter, and I will not bargain away my First Amendment rights by seeking their removal. Likewise, Mimi Rothschild proffered an untenable "settlement offer" which would have required us to remove every-thing we've ever said about her (including the 2008 HEM editor-ial). Plus, it would have required that we agree that not only we, but others who have concerns about the actions of Mimi and her busi-nesses--people we have no control over, and who are not even parties to this suit--give up our collective constitutional rights to comment on anything Mimi does in the future, no matter how it might affect homeschooling and home-schooling families. This we cannot find acceptable, but Mimi Rothschild will doubtless play up her offer as a good faith attempt to find resolution, and she will portray our refusal to accept her offer as our being unreasonable and recalcitrant. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we would welcome a serious and truly equitable proposal for reso-lution. Please accept our apologies for the confusion, complexity, and disruption this situation has brought to homeschooling, and for the interruptions in our phone, email, and web services for homeschooling families. We and our attorneys are working hard to bring an end to this lawsuit so we can return to producing and pro-viding an excellent homeschooling magazine, as we have done for the past 29 years. Helen Hegener, publisher Home Education Magazine HEM homeedmag.com Home Education Magazine • September-October 2011 3
Publisher’s Note
Helen Hegener
The Lawsuit<br /> <br /> Readers of this magazine may be aware of the lawsuit and claim for damages that was filed last year by cyberschool owner Mimi Rothschild, her husband Howard Mandel, and their business, the Learning by Grace family of online academies. The lawsuit was initially filed against homeschooling mother Heather Idoni, and the complaint was subsequently amended to add me, HEM publisher Helen Hegener, to the lawsuit. They initially claimed they had been defamed by our critique of their business practices.Now they are seeking the court's permission to assert an additional claim alleging that Idoni and I have committed "antitrust" violations by expressing our opinions about them. As we go to press, the court has not given them permission.<br /> <br /> Readers may also be aware of Mimi Rothschild's increasingly threatening and damaging statements and other actions against me and many other individuals. Foremost among these was her successful efforts to compromise the Home Education Magazine web site in early September, which has resulted in the collapse of our site, the failure of our online ordering system, and innumerable customer service problems. As this issue goes to press we are still resolving serious problems associated with this situation, but by the time this issue reaches our readers we should have a fully functioning web site once again.<br /> <br /> Over the past several weeks Mimi Rothschild has penned a series of vituperative blog posts defaming me, my family, and whoever Mimi has thought might be connected, supporting, related to or in any way associated with Home Education Magazine. The posts, which display outrageous rhetoric and unreasonable accusations, are a rather transparent attempt to create a bargaining chip with which to force me to remove the single 2008 HEM editorial which describes Mimi Rothchild's attempts to, as she clearly stated at the time, "take over homeschooling."<br /> <br /> Mimi Rothschild's sad and mean-spirited blog posts stand in mute testimony to her own character, and I will not bargain away my First Amendment rights by seeking their removal. Likewise, Mimi Rothschild proffered an untenable "settlement offer" which would have required us to remove everything we've ever said about her (including the 2008 HEM editorial).Plus, it would have required that we agree that not only we, but others who have concerns about the actions of Mimi and her businesses-- people we have no control over, and who are not even parties to this suit--give up our collective constitutional rights to comment on anything Mimi does in the future, no matter how it might affect homeschooling and homeschooling families. This we cannot find acceptable, but Mimi Rothschild will doubtless play up her offer as a good faith attempt to find resolution, and she will portray our refusal to accept her offer as our being unreasonable and recalcitrant. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we would welcome a serious and truly equitable proposal for resolution.<br /> <br /> Please accept our apologies for the confusion, complexity, and disruption this situation has brought to homeschooling, and for the interruptions in our phone, email, and web services for homeschooling families. We and our attorneys are working hard to bring an end to this lawsuit so we can return to producing and providing an excellent homeschooling magazine, as we have done for the past 29 years.<br /> <br /> Helen Hegener, publisher Home Education Magazine
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