Two Professors Sue French Magazine

In France, political correctness and Harvard-bashing are a la mode. But two Harvard French professors are trying to put the popular pastimes in perspective.

The two professors are suing Le Figaro Magazine for libel and defamation,after an article in the magazine attacked their academic credentials and the french section of Harvard's Romance Languages and Literatures Department.

Professor of Romance Language and Literatures Alice A. Jardine and Professor of Romance and Comparative Literatures Susan R. Suleiman are asking for a printed apology and damages of 150,000 francs, or about $30,000.

The lawsuit was prompted by an April 16,1994 article by French journalist Victor Loupan titled "That Peculiar France: Made in the USA."

At the trial, which was held on Wednesday, March 15, at the Palace of Justice in Paris, Jardine and Suleiman contended that Loupan blantantly misrepresented their teaching qualifications and the content of Harvard's French program. A verdict in the libel suit is expected on May 10.

In the article, Loupan characterizes the Harvard French program as a community of feminist scholars devoted to the study of homosexual women of color.

At Harvard, "a classic author is a suspect author--better still, a banned author," he writes. "A contemporary work will be taught there if its author is a woman (at least), of color (if possible) and homosexual (perfect)."

The article fault's Harvard's French program for its departure from the traditional canon of French literature.

"Harvard is the temple of the politically correct,''' Loupan writes.

"That is to say, the new thought police....Feminists and followers of political correctness--the majority among Harvard professor--like to act as the Red Guard."

In addition to attacking the University, Loupanattacks the qualifications of those who teachhere.

"Among the women who succeeded [Harvard's]great [French] professor, Alice Jardine alonemight present a semblance of universityqualification," Loupan writes, proceeding to mockthose qualifications as insignificant.

Jardine, Suleiman and their colleagues andstudents have responded to Loupan's allegationswith a mixture of anger and amused dismay. Jardinesays that the magazine is "less respectable" thanthe daily newspaper. Still, Suleiman says thatmany people do read the glossy supplement.

"Many of them know that the magazine is veryright-wing and not always reliable," Suleimansays. "But nevertheless... the power of theprinted word is great."

Both professors wrote letters to the editor ofthe magazine responding to Loupan's accusations.

"There are so many lies, omissions, anddistortions in [Loupan's] article that it isalmost futile to try to correct them all," Jardinewriters. "the entire article is based on anintention to damage and undermine the professionaldignity of Harvard professors."

Suleiman also question the accuracy of Loupan'sarticle.

Loupan's "allegations concerning the teachingof French literature at Harvard, by me and mycolleagues, are a web of lies," she writes.Suleiman later calls them a "work of theimagination, not of journalism."

"I find it incomprehensible that a major Frenchnewspaper could sink to the level of ignorance andcallousness manifested in the article by VictorLoupan," she writes.

Both Suleiman Jardine say they view the articleas a right-wing assault on American highereducation.

The intellectual movement against feminism andmulticulturalism began with the right-wing attackin the United States, and has been picked up byboth the French right-wing in the case of LeFigaro and also by some liberal Frenchjournalists and intellectuals, Suleiman says.

"I think the French, for reasons having to dowith debates in France over the role of minoritiesand 'French identity', are very open to what werecognize in the United States as the right-wingattack on multiculturalism," Suleiman says. "Butthe problem is that they don't recognize thepolitical nature of these attacks."

"Some people actually believe both here andthere that all feminist thought is 'dogmatic,close-minded' and so on," Suleiman says. "But thisis of course not true. It really is possible tobe a feminist and intelligent."

Political Correctness

Those who attack political correctness,Suleiman says, simplify and reduce what they wantto attack and then pick several "sensational"cases which they repeat and over.

An example of this, Jardine says, is theattack on feminism in America. Frenchjournalists, she says tend to mention only twopeople, Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin,even though "they do not represent all women orall feminists in the U.S."

"They take an extreme opinion or an extremestatement, and generalize it," Jardine says.

"But there thousands and thousands of collegeand universities in the U.S., and three or fourcases simply don't tell you how things reallyare," Suleiman says.

Richard Rorty, University professor of thehumanities at the University of Virginia, says thecase raises the issue of the appropriation of theP.C. debate.

"I think that a lot of silly things are beingdone by left-wing professors in the U.S. and inFrance, so the left does open itself to criticism,but it sounds as if Figaro, like WallStreet Journal, is using this silliness to mount acampaign against anything that opposes their ownright-wing view," he says, Rorty says Jardine andSuleiman are not examples of this "silliness."

Suleiman agrees that the media coverage seemsto be a reaction against the liberal educationalagenda, which focuses on the role of women andminorities.

"The attack on 'political correctness,' as faras I can see, is a reaction based on fear of newdevelopments that threaten some people's sense ofhow things should be, but we can't go back to the19th century when the so-called minorities weretruly invisible and silent," she says. "Those daysare over and we had better learn how to deal withthe present and future, rather than trying to turnback the clock."

Both scholars blame the media's fascinationwith political correctness for a lack ofintelligent discussion on minority issues.

"The press uses the term politically correct toshut down debate so we can't talk about solutionto the problem," Jardine says.

Checking Credentials

The magazine's attack on the academicqualifications of the women teaching French atHarvard "is a gross piece of misinformation,"Suleiman says in an interview. "The journalist waseither unbelievably ignorant or lying--in eithercase, his action was intolerable."

Jardine is the author of Gynesis:Configurations of woman and Modernity(alsopublished in France in 1991). She has co-editedThe Future of Difference; Men in Feminism;Social Control and the ArtsandShiftingScenes: Interviews on Women, Writing and Politicsin post-68 France.

Suleiman is the author of several booksincluding: Authoritarian Fiction: TheIdeological Novels as a Literary Genre (alsopublished in France in 1983);Subversive Intent;Gender, Politics and the Avant-Garde; and RiskingWho One Is: Encounters Contemporary Art andLiterature. She has also published more than50 articles.

Jardine also defends her courses, which Loupanattacks as focusing solely on feminist literatureand feminist theory.

"Leading one to believe that I spend all mytime teaching exclusively the works of women ofcolor o homosexual women is not only completelyfalse, but it also reveals a vengeful, racist,homophobic sentiment that I consider disgracefulfor France's image," Jardine writes.

Students or Subjects?

Student concentrating in French say they do notbelieve that the French professors overemphasizefeminist theory and literature at the expense ofother authors.

"I think that feminist theory is a literarytheory that's been prevalent in the 20th-centuryand that to present it within the courses offeredis nothing out of the ordinary," says Elizabeth M.Remy '95, who is pursuing a joint concentration inFrench and music.

Remy, who took her sophomore tutorial withJardine, says that it was a chronologicaldiscussion of French literature and theory, so theclass did not discuss feminism until the end ofthe course.

"It is a major theory that has been presentedin this century and whether everybody agrees withit or not, it's worthy of being discussed andplaced [with] the other trends of the century,"she says.

Sarah J. Lacasse '97 agrees with Remy that thedepartment's focus is sufficiently diverse.

"In my course, I've been satisfied with thevariety of literature to which we've beenexposed," she says.

Students are not alone in defending thedepartment. Five other French Professors who wereteaching at Harvard last spring also wrote lettersto Le Figaro Magazine condemning Loupan'sattacks.

Loupan writes that when he visited Harvard lastspring, Associate Professor of Romance Languageand Literature Nadine S. Berenguier was offeringcourse on the Enlightenment.

"Using a strange methodology, she does notdiscuss the texts," he writes. "She pits themagainst each other in pairs, a woman's textagainst a man's text."

But in an interview, Berenguier says, "I wasnot teaching the course during the semester inwhich the article was written. I was on leave thewhole year."

"The journalist only used the catalog to writethe paragraph about me and I don't call that goodjournalism," she says.

Berenguier says she responded in her letter bycorrecting the facts.

"My teaching was misrepresented, so were thefacts," she says. "I just corrected the facts and[tried] to represent my teaching in general and inthe class that was under attack."

Suleiman echoes Berenguier's charge againstLoupan, who claims to have heard her course on20th-century Realism.

"My course on French fiction was given in thefall semester," Suleiman says in an interview."There was no way in the world that thisjournalist could have seen or heard me teach thatcourse in March 1994."

"Furthermore, he attributes to me thoughts andideas that I have never expressed," Suleiman says."This, I think, is really irresponsiblejournalism."

Suleiman emphasizes that although Loupanvisited Cambridge, and made Jardine and herselfthe "stars" of his story, "he never bothered totry contacting us either in person or bytelephone."

As a result, Suleiman and Jardine decided tosue Loupan and Le Figaro Magazine.

Everyone's Critic

Loupan is not alone in criticizing the Frenchsection of Harvard's Romance Languages andLiterature Department.

Alex Beam, a columnist for the Boston Globe,writes that Loupan's main theme is accurate, evenif number of details are wrong, in an op-ed piecepublished of February 10.

"Harvard's French Department is not highlyregarded, because it is viewed as a hotbed ofmodish feminist criticism," Beam writes.

In the January/February issue of LinguaFranca. a magazine that reviews academiclife, Susannah Hunnewell notes at the end of areport on the Figaro case, "Whatever Loupin's[sic] errors, he may have been on to one thing:Harvard's French department is in some disarray."

"Since three professors left in quicksuccession in the late 80s, the department has hadto supplement its faculty with visitingprofessors, among them the distinguished TzvetanTodorov," Hunnewell writes.

"In one sense, Loupin [sic] can't be blamed forwondering if 'old authors are suspect' at Harvard;two of the French department's four tenuredprofessor, namely Suleiman and Jardine, specializein twentieth century literature," Hunnewell adds.

But Mary M. Gaylord, the chair of RomanceLanguage and Literature Department, responded in aletter to the Globe: "Harvard-bashing has alwaysbeen a popular pastime, locally and nationally.Rather than seeking international participation(from Le Figaro) in this sport, I wouldhope that a responsible journalist might check hisinformation somewhere closer to home."

Gaylord adds in an interview that the Frenchsection is working on bringing in more professorto supplement its four senior and three juniorprofessors.

Naomi Schor, a Duke University professorspecializing in 19th-century French literature,was appointed senior professor in March and willbegin teaching in September.

The department also offered tenure to TomConley, a 16th-century French literature expertcurrently teaching at the University of Minnesota,according to Gaylord. Jardine confirmed last nightthat Conley has accepted the position and will beHarvard in September.

Gaylord says the French section of thedepartment is working on bringing in a jointappointment with the African American StudiesDepartment, but refuses to name the person beingconsidered.

Gaylord says the French faculty is very strongand the additions will only improve it.

"I think [Loupan's] attack...completely missedthe point of what a strong French faculty we havehere and how we respect and value them," she says.

Battle Royale

Jardine and Suleiman--maintaining that theattacks are false--filed suit in a French courtlast year in order to defend their honor and thatof their department.

"Basically, we sued because we thought it wasintolerable to let this kind of irresponsiblejournalism go without a very strong response,"Suleiman says. "This journalist went beyond thelimit."

"It just went too far," Jardine says. "InFrance, there is so much misunderstanding aboutdebate on American campuses that to dismiss itwould [contribute to the] misunderstanding."

Both professor says they envision the suit as awake-up call to French journalists.

French journalists' "understanding of what ishappening in the U.S. is often very cloudy basedon hearsay and misinformation," Suleiman says. "Wewanted them to pay attention more."

"We want to take the message to the press andelsewhere in the U.S. that they are welcome todiffer with us and do anything, excerpt lie,distort and misrepresent [What we say,]" Jardinesays. "The press cannot say just anything--that'snot freedom of the press."

Colleagues at Harvard and around the U.S.generally support the decision of the twoprofessors to sue Le Figaro magazine.

"I think they were justified," Berengueir says."In their case, the allegations were very serious.Their reputation was at stake in that article."

"I think that the journalist has been utterlyunprofessional and insulting, and they are rightto sue back," says Denis Hollier, the chair of theFrench Department at Yale. "...But I don't thinkit will solve the very deep misunderstanding thatFrench people have about American universities."

"In fact, I'm afraid it might even aggravateit," he adds.

Catharine R. Stimpson, director of the fellowsprogram of the MacArthur Foundation and a frequentauthor of essays on higher education in the U.S.,also support Jardine and Suleiman.

"I think that the article is slanderous, and Iam delighted that [Jardine and Suleiman] are goingthough the agony of suing--and it is an agony,"she says.

She wrote a letter about Loupan's article toJardine and Suleiman's lawyer in which she says,"The depth of the article's ignorance, thehostility of its tone, and the extent of itsinaccuracies astonished me."

About 60 others, including many of Jardine andSuleiman's graduate students, wrote letters ofprotest which were presented in court.

Lawyer Herve Cren presented both cases in thetrial, but only Jardine's has legal standingbecause Suleiman's papers were delivered two daysafter the statute of limitation on libel hadexpired.

"Our lawyers sent both affidavits to thehuissier, or bailiff, just a few daysbefore the deadline and asked him to deliver bothin time," Suleiman says. "For a reason I have notquite understood, only Alice Jardine's affidavitarrived on time; mine arrived two days after."

Suleiman says that the lawyer presentedJardine's and her cases together and "asked thecourt to see what it could do about maintainingmine in its judgment."

The trial, which took place at the Palais deJustice, the main court of Paris, consisted oflawyers' arguments from both sides before a panelof three robed French judges, Suleiman says.

During the trial, Jardine recounts, Crenbrought bags filled with books published by thetwo professors and placed them on a table beforethe judges in order to refute Loupan's charge thatthe two lacked any academic qualifications.

"Our lawyer was very elegant and accurate,"Jardine says. "I think he presented a very strongcase."

Jardine says the lawyer for Le Figaro did not have much to say. Suleiman agrees, saying"He presented a very weak argument saying simplythat the journalist had published two books andthat Alice Jardine and I were 'feminist.' That isnot much of an argument."

In France, the plaintiff does not need to showintentional defamation and can win a libel suit ifthere are important factual errors in an article.

"In France, it's very simple," Jardine says."It's about honor."

"French libel law is more weighted in favor ofthe plaintiff," Suleiman says. "Suleiman says. "Ifthe journalist makes statements that are libelous,that is, which do harm to the 'honor andreputation' of an individual, that is sufficient,I believe," to win a case.

"I believe certainly in Alice Jardine's case,she should win," Suleiman says. "What they will doabout the money awards is separate question and Idon't know what they will do about the technicallyinvolving my case."

Many legal experts have predicted that Jardineand Suleiman will win the case, Jardine says. Ifthey do, Le Figaro will have to publish astatement in newspapers of Jardine and Suleiman'schoosing that it was found guilty of libel anddefamation, Jardine says.

"I'm glad we did it," Jardine says. "It wasworth it whatever the verdict."Photo Courtesy Tames FenerSUSAN R. SULEIMAN

In addition to attacking the University, Loupanattacks the qualifications of those who teachhere.

"Among the women who succeeded [Harvard's]great [French] professor, Alice Jardine alonemight present a semblance of universityqualification," Loupan writes, proceeding to mockthose qualifications as insignificant.

Jardine, Suleiman and their colleagues andstudents have responded to Loupan's allegationswith a mixture of anger and amused dismay. Jardinesays that the magazine is "less respectable" thanthe daily newspaper. Still, Suleiman says thatmany people do read the glossy supplement.

"Many of them know that the magazine is veryright-wing and not always reliable," Suleimansays. "But nevertheless... the power of theprinted word is great."

Both professors wrote letters to the editor ofthe magazine responding to Loupan's accusations.

"There are so many lies, omissions, anddistortions in [Loupan's] article that it isalmost futile to try to correct them all," Jardinewriters. "the entire article is based on anintention to damage and undermine the professionaldignity of Harvard professors."

Suleiman also question the accuracy of Loupan'sarticle.

Loupan's "allegations concerning the teachingof French literature at Harvard, by me and mycolleagues, are a web of lies," she writes.Suleiman later calls them a "work of theimagination, not of journalism."

"I find it incomprehensible that a major Frenchnewspaper could sink to the level of ignorance andcallousness manifested in the article by VictorLoupan," she writes.

Both Suleiman Jardine say they view the articleas a right-wing assault on American highereducation.

The intellectual movement against feminism andmulticulturalism began with the right-wing attackin the United States, and has been picked up byboth the French right-wing in the case of LeFigaro and also by some liberal Frenchjournalists and intellectuals, Suleiman says.

"I think the French, for reasons having to dowith debates in France over the role of minoritiesand 'French identity', are very open to what werecognize in the United States as the right-wingattack on multiculturalism," Suleiman says. "Butthe problem is that they don't recognize thepolitical nature of these attacks."

"Some people actually believe both here andthere that all feminist thought is 'dogmatic,close-minded' and so on," Suleiman says. "But thisis of course not true. It really is possible tobe a feminist and intelligent."

Political Correctness

Those who attack political correctness,Suleiman says, simplify and reduce what they wantto attack and then pick several "sensational"cases which they repeat and over.

An example of this, Jardine says, is theattack on feminism in America. Frenchjournalists, she says tend to mention only twopeople, Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin,even though "they do not represent all women orall feminists in the U.S."

"They take an extreme opinion or an extremestatement, and generalize it," Jardine says.

"But there thousands and thousands of collegeand universities in the U.S., and three or fourcases simply don't tell you how things reallyare," Suleiman says.

Richard Rorty, University professor of thehumanities at the University of Virginia, says thecase raises the issue of the appropriation of theP.C. debate.

"I think that a lot of silly things are beingdone by left-wing professors in the U.S. and inFrance, so the left does open itself to criticism,but it sounds as if Figaro, like WallStreet Journal, is using this silliness to mount acampaign against anything that opposes their ownright-wing view," he says, Rorty says Jardine andSuleiman are not examples of this "silliness."

Suleiman agrees that the media coverage seemsto be a reaction against the liberal educationalagenda, which focuses on the role of women andminorities.

"The attack on 'political correctness,' as faras I can see, is a reaction based on fear of newdevelopments that threaten some people's sense ofhow things should be, but we can't go back to the19th century when the so-called minorities weretruly invisible and silent," she says. "Those daysare over and we had better learn how to deal withthe present and future, rather than trying to turnback the clock."

Both scholars blame the media's fascinationwith political correctness for a lack ofintelligent discussion on minority issues.

"The press uses the term politically correct toshut down debate so we can't talk about solutionto the problem," Jardine says.

Checking Credentials

The magazine's attack on the academicqualifications of the women teaching French atHarvard "is a gross piece of misinformation,"Suleiman says in an interview. "The journalist waseither unbelievably ignorant or lying--in eithercase, his action was intolerable."

Jardine is the author of Gynesis:Configurations of woman and Modernity(alsopublished in France in 1991). She has co-editedThe Future of Difference; Men in Feminism;Social Control and the ArtsandShiftingScenes: Interviews on Women, Writing and Politicsin post-68 France.

Suleiman is the author of several booksincluding: Authoritarian Fiction: TheIdeological Novels as a Literary Genre (alsopublished in France in 1983);Subversive Intent;Gender, Politics and the Avant-Garde; and RiskingWho One Is: Encounters Contemporary Art andLiterature. She has also published more than50 articles.

Jardine also defends her courses, which Loupanattacks as focusing solely on feminist literatureand feminist theory.

"Leading one to believe that I spend all mytime teaching exclusively the works of women ofcolor o homosexual women is not only completelyfalse, but it also reveals a vengeful, racist,homophobic sentiment that I consider disgracefulfor France's image," Jardine writes.

Students or Subjects?

Student concentrating in French say they do notbelieve that the French professors overemphasizefeminist theory and literature at the expense ofother authors.

"I think that feminist theory is a literarytheory that's been prevalent in the 20th-centuryand that to present it within the courses offeredis nothing out of the ordinary," says Elizabeth M.Remy '95, who is pursuing a joint concentration inFrench and music.

Remy, who took her sophomore tutorial withJardine, says that it was a chronologicaldiscussion of French literature and theory, so theclass did not discuss feminism until the end ofthe course.

"It is a major theory that has been presentedin this century and whether everybody agrees withit or not, it's worthy of being discussed andplaced [with] the other trends of the century,"she says.

Sarah J. Lacasse '97 agrees with Remy that thedepartment's focus is sufficiently diverse.

"In my course, I've been satisfied with thevariety of literature to which we've beenexposed," she says.

Students are not alone in defending thedepartment. Five other French Professors who wereteaching at Harvard last spring also wrote lettersto Le Figaro Magazine condemning Loupan'sattacks.

Loupan writes that when he visited Harvard lastspring, Associate Professor of Romance Languageand Literature Nadine S. Berenguier was offeringcourse on the Enlightenment.

"Using a strange methodology, she does notdiscuss the texts," he writes. "She pits themagainst each other in pairs, a woman's textagainst a man's text."

But in an interview, Berenguier says, "I wasnot teaching the course during the semester inwhich the article was written. I was on leave thewhole year."

"The journalist only used the catalog to writethe paragraph about me and I don't call that goodjournalism," she says.

Berenguier says she responded in her letter bycorrecting the facts.

"My teaching was misrepresented, so were thefacts," she says. "I just corrected the facts and[tried] to represent my teaching in general and inthe class that was under attack."

Suleiman echoes Berenguier's charge againstLoupan, who claims to have heard her course on20th-century Realism.

"My course on French fiction was given in thefall semester," Suleiman says in an interview."There was no way in the world that thisjournalist could have seen or heard me teach thatcourse in March 1994."

"Furthermore, he attributes to me thoughts andideas that I have never expressed," Suleiman says."This, I think, is really irresponsiblejournalism."

Suleiman emphasizes that although Loupanvisited Cambridge, and made Jardine and herselfthe "stars" of his story, "he never bothered totry contacting us either in person or bytelephone."

As a result, Suleiman and Jardine decided tosue Loupan and Le Figaro Magazine.

Everyone's Critic

Loupan is not alone in criticizing the Frenchsection of Harvard's Romance Languages andLiterature Department.

Alex Beam, a columnist for the Boston Globe,writes that Loupan's main theme is accurate, evenif number of details are wrong, in an op-ed piecepublished of February 10.

"Harvard's French Department is not highlyregarded, because it is viewed as a hotbed ofmodish feminist criticism," Beam writes.

In the January/February issue of LinguaFranca. a magazine that reviews academiclife, Susannah Hunnewell notes at the end of areport on the Figaro case, "Whatever Loupin's[sic] errors, he may have been on to one thing:Harvard's French department is in some disarray."

"Since three professors left in quicksuccession in the late 80s, the department has hadto supplement its faculty with visitingprofessors, among them the distinguished TzvetanTodorov," Hunnewell writes.

"In one sense, Loupin [sic] can't be blamed forwondering if 'old authors are suspect' at Harvard;two of the French department's four tenuredprofessor, namely Suleiman and Jardine, specializein twentieth century literature," Hunnewell adds.

But Mary M. Gaylord, the chair of RomanceLanguage and Literature Department, responded in aletter to the Globe: "Harvard-bashing has alwaysbeen a popular pastime, locally and nationally.Rather than seeking international participation(from Le Figaro) in this sport, I wouldhope that a responsible journalist might check hisinformation somewhere closer to home."

Gaylord adds in an interview that the Frenchsection is working on bringing in more professorto supplement its four senior and three juniorprofessors.

Naomi Schor, a Duke University professorspecializing in 19th-century French literature,was appointed senior professor in March and willbegin teaching in September.

The department also offered tenure to TomConley, a 16th-century French literature expertcurrently teaching at the University of Minnesota,according to Gaylord. Jardine confirmed last nightthat Conley has accepted the position and will beHarvard in September.

Gaylord says the French section of thedepartment is working on bringing in a jointappointment with the African American StudiesDepartment, but refuses to name the person beingconsidered.

Gaylord says the French faculty is very strongand the additions will only improve it.

"I think [Loupan's] attack...completely missedthe point of what a strong French faculty we havehere and how we respect and value them," she says.

Battle Royale

Jardine and Suleiman--maintaining that theattacks are false--filed suit in a French courtlast year in order to defend their honor and thatof their department.

"Basically, we sued because we thought it wasintolerable to let this kind of irresponsiblejournalism go without a very strong response,"Suleiman says. "This journalist went beyond thelimit."

"It just went too far," Jardine says. "InFrance, there is so much misunderstanding aboutdebate on American campuses that to dismiss itwould [contribute to the] misunderstanding."

Both professor says they envision the suit as awake-up call to French journalists.

French journalists' "understanding of what ishappening in the U.S. is often very cloudy basedon hearsay and misinformation," Suleiman says. "Wewanted them to pay attention more."

"We want to take the message to the press andelsewhere in the U.S. that they are welcome todiffer with us and do anything, excerpt lie,distort and misrepresent [What we say,]" Jardinesays. "The press cannot say just anything--that'snot freedom of the press."

Colleagues at Harvard and around the U.S.generally support the decision of the twoprofessors to sue Le Figaro magazine.

"I think they were justified," Berengueir says."In their case, the allegations were very serious.Their reputation was at stake in that article."

"I think that the journalist has been utterlyunprofessional and insulting, and they are rightto sue back," says Denis Hollier, the chair of theFrench Department at Yale. "...But I don't thinkit will solve the very deep misunderstanding thatFrench people have about American universities."

"In fact, I'm afraid it might even aggravateit," he adds.

Catharine R. Stimpson, director of the fellowsprogram of the MacArthur Foundation and a frequentauthor of essays on higher education in the U.S.,also support Jardine and Suleiman.

"I think that the article is slanderous, and Iam delighted that [Jardine and Suleiman] are goingthough the agony of suing--and it is an agony,"she says.

She wrote a letter about Loupan's article toJardine and Suleiman's lawyer in which she says,"The depth of the article's ignorance, thehostility of its tone, and the extent of itsinaccuracies astonished me."

About 60 others, including many of Jardine andSuleiman's graduate students, wrote letters ofprotest which were presented in court.

Lawyer Herve Cren presented both cases in thetrial, but only Jardine's has legal standingbecause Suleiman's papers were delivered two daysafter the statute of limitation on libel hadexpired.

"Our lawyers sent both affidavits to thehuissier, or bailiff, just a few daysbefore the deadline and asked him to deliver bothin time," Suleiman says. "For a reason I have notquite understood, only Alice Jardine's affidavitarrived on time; mine arrived two days after."

Suleiman says that the lawyer presentedJardine's and her cases together and "asked thecourt to see what it could do about maintainingmine in its judgment."

The trial, which took place at the Palais deJustice, the main court of Paris, consisted oflawyers' arguments from both sides before a panelof three robed French judges, Suleiman says.

During the trial, Jardine recounts, Crenbrought bags filled with books published by thetwo professors and placed them on a table beforethe judges in order to refute Loupan's charge thatthe two lacked any academic qualifications.

"Our lawyer was very elegant and accurate,"Jardine says. "I think he presented a very strongcase."

Jardine says the lawyer for Le Figaro did not have much to say. Suleiman agrees, saying"He presented a very weak argument saying simplythat the journalist had published two books andthat Alice Jardine and I were 'feminist.' That isnot much of an argument."

In France, the plaintiff does not need to showintentional defamation and can win a libel suit ifthere are important factual errors in an article.

"In France, it's very simple," Jardine says."It's about honor."

"French libel law is more weighted in favor ofthe plaintiff," Suleiman says. "Suleiman says. "Ifthe journalist makes statements that are libelous,that is, which do harm to the 'honor andreputation' of an individual, that is sufficient,I believe," to win a case.

"I believe certainly in Alice Jardine's case,she should win," Suleiman says. "What they will doabout the money awards is separate question and Idon't know what they will do about the technicallyinvolving my case."

Many legal experts have predicted that Jardineand Suleiman will win the case, Jardine says. Ifthey do, Le Figaro will have to publish astatement in newspapers of Jardine and Suleiman'schoosing that it was found guilty of libel anddefamation, Jardine says.

"I'm glad we did it," Jardine says. "It wasworth it whatever the verdict."Photo Courtesy Tames FenerSUSAN R. SULEIMAN