Tag Archives: legal action

Student Who Described Lesbians As “Perverse” In Essay Continues Legal Action Against University

Student, Monico Pompeo – who described lesbians as “perverse” in an essay – continues to legal battle, claiming she has been ostracised by professors at her university.

Ms Pompeo filed an appeal to the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver claiming the University of New Mexico (at which she was a student), violated her First Amendment right to free speech and that she was kicked out of class in 2012.

Ms. Pompeo says the action was taken in 2012 after she described lesbianism as “perverse”, in an essay about a film about a lesbian romance.

According to the Albuquerque Journal, Pompeo alleges that her teacher’s actions violated the syllabus of the class which called for “open minds” to look at “representations of a plethora of genders and sexualities.”

Ms. Pompeo claims she was accused of employing “hate speech”, and in 2013 filed a lawsuit, which gained attention across the US.

After initially finding that Ms. Pompeo had a plausible case for her lawsuit last year, Chief US District Judge M Christina Armijo later found that the student had been given several opportunities to rewrite her essay.

The judge found after investigation that Ms. Pompeo had had explained to her that she had not backed up her opinion that lesbianism is “perverse” with critical analysis.

Judge Armijo also found that communication attempts were made by the professor in question and her boss to get Ms. Pompeo to re-write the essay, and that taking such action was within the realm of teaching.

A hearing is set for next month.

Ellen Page Looked to Take Legal Action Against Sony After Nude Video Game Images Leaked Online

Ellen Page has never appeared nude in a film. She has, however, appeared nude in a video game.

However, according to the Wikileaks archive of leaked Sony emails, because of that nudity in a video game, Page explored taking legal action against the developer and the company.

The game in question is PlayStation 3’s Beyond: Two Souls.

Beyond-Two-Souls-Ellen-Page-03 Beyond-Two-Souls-Ellen-Page-01

In one scene, Page’s character takes a shower. Her character model is never shown fully nude, nor is it possible to manipulate the game’s camera to see her naked character. However,  if you run the game in a “debug” PlayStation 3 mode, players are able to see Page naked.

Page didn’t allow the game’s developers to scan her naked body. Instead, programmers and artists at the game’s development studio, France-based Quantic Dream, created a fully rendered naked model of Page’s in-game character, Jodie.

Here’s the “shower scene” from 2013’s “Beyond: Two Souls” as it appeared in the normal version game:

According to the leaked emails, Page’s legal team got in touch with Sony, and eventually Sony Computer Entertainment America, the PlayStation arm of Sony.

Her attorney attempted to work out a fix with the game’s developer, Quantic Dream, first, the emails say. Representatives for Quantic Dream “would not engage in mediation, and objected to arbitration,” Page’s lawyer wrote in an email to Weil in January 2014.

When that didn’t work, they contacted Sony  to warn of an impending lawsuit on behalf of Page.

Responding on February 4, 2014, Sony said they had “started to look into this,” but would need a few days to get all his facts together. Russell said that the game’s developer is ultimately culpable for the content of the game, not its publisher, Sony. Moreover, he said in one leaked email, “The developer has the responsibility, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t get sued.”

The issue was enough for Sony to send takedown notices to websites publishing the images of Ellen Page’s naked in-game character.

It’s unclear where the legal action went, if anywhere, after that. The email thread between Weil and Russell ends there, and we weren’t able to find any legal cases in Los Angeles pertaining to Ellen Page, her legal representation, and Sony (or Quantic Dream). Representatives for Sony Computer Entertainment, and Jeffrey Abrams, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.