Former FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright had a Title IX complaint against him in his former role as a professor at ASS Law (George Mason University’s “Antonin Scalia School of Law”), he’s been called out by another law professor for dangling a phony job opening in a bid to romantically proposition the applicant, two senior Biglaw attorneys went public to say that he started sleeping with them when they were 1Ls in his class and continued to carry on these affairs out of concern for their careers, and now he’s suing those lawyers for defamation.
In his lawsuit, he admits to sleeping with the 1Ls — and alludes to yet another student he was sleeping with at the same time! — but somehow thinks the damage to his professional reputation turns on whether or not he actively coerced the women and not on creep professor set out to sleep with a bunch of first-years. Because he’s admitting the second part in his own filing and methinks he’s underestimating how toxic that sounds to potential clients.
But in keeping with the notion that the whole case revolves less around the facts than how one describes those facts, someone from an IP address near ASS Law is trying to spin the account of this conduct on Wright’s Wikipedia page. And whoever it is has never attempted to edit any Wikipedia page other than Wright’s and ASS Law’s.
And the edits are… bold.
You say “sexual relationships,” I say “flirting,” let’s call the whole thing off. While it’s accurate to note that Wright’s lawyers from Trumpland mainstay Binnall Law Group accuse the senior Biglaw lawyers of having a financial motive, it’s gratuitously jammed in there.
A few days later, the same user edited a reference to “several” women accusing Wright of misconduct to noting a single Title IX complaint.
Another couple days pass, and the user makes this change:
Sexual misconduct to “hitting on them” is a wild downgrade in any circumstance, but it’s especially wild when the professor admits to having sex with them. At some point “hitting on them” ceases to be the right descriptor.
Like, you wouldn’t have a Wikipedia edit that says, “The fusion of female and male gametes usually occurs following the act of sexual intercourse hitting on them.”
Maybe on the page for Jesus, but nowhere else.
This particular edit included the justification:
If the post had said “sexual abuse” then that would be incorrect. Except it didn’t. It said “sexual misconduct” which is both exactly the terminology used in the article interviewing Wright’s accusers and what we colloquially would call professors sleeping with students.
As for the term “predator,” Wright’s own complaint — put in the day before this edit — stated, “Once again, Defendant Dorsey intends to portray Mr. Wright as a sexual predator, but in reality, this is about a love-triangle among consenting adults.” Not to say the user making these edits is in reality Wright or someone on his defense team, but whoever it is has the same definitional hang-up over whether scheming on multiple students at once amounts to “predator” behavior.
Did we mention that it’s possible to isolate the user’s location from the IP address attached to the edits? No? Well, it’s possible to isolate the user’s location from the IP address attached to the edits.
How do people not know this? We only recently caught the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s wingnuttiest member — which is actually saying a LOT when it comes to that institution — editing her own Wikipedia entry to spin her comparing COVID public health measures to Japanese internment in WWII. At least the person editing Wright’s page didn’t employ an easily decipherable username like the Wisconsin justice did.
Anyway, these Wright edits are coming from Arlington, Virginia. In fact, the Wikipedia editor was less than half a mile from ASS Law.
Curious!
Earlier: State Supreme Court Justice Caught Editing Own Wikipedia Entry
Law School’s ‘Restrictions’ On Professor’s Contact With Students During Sexual Harassment Probe Apparently Didn’t Cover Auctioning Off A Date
We Shouldn’t Have To Say This, But Job Interviews Are Not Your Personal Dating App
Sexual Harassment Allegations Mount Against Former FTC Commissioner & Law Professor
Ex-Law Professor Sues Former Students For $108M Over Sexual Harassment Allegations
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
