Landmark Education and the law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article discusses legal actions by and against Landmark Education. For specific court cases, see [[]].
Landmark Education, whose Chairman Art Schreiber also acts as the organization's General Counsel and Chairman of the Board of Directors, has been involved in legal actions over the years only some of which have ended in courtroom litigation (for some of those, see Landmark Education litigation. Schreiber, a past President of Erhard Seminars Training and initial agent for Werner Erhard and Associates, has also utilized letters to accomplish legal matters, without actually going to trial in some cases. These letters usually take the form of cease and desist letters, warning the party in question that legal action may transpire if their wishes are not adhered to. The letters are often accompanied by large amounts of information from commentators who have positive opinions of Landmark Education.
Contents |
[edit] Reputation and "looking good"
Landmark Education likes to present itself as a business, and reacts to the frequent mentions of terminology such as "cult" or "brainwashing" in connection with its name. This process, referred to within Landmark Education as "the public conversation" [1] , may manifest itself in the dispatch of a "press kit" of discussions of defamation and testimonials affirming that Landmark Education's characteristics do not match the said terms. Traci Hukill recounts her experience when Schreiber noted that she had started researching Landmark Education:
Schreiber responded swiftly with a 10-page letter advising me of his "serious concern" that I might defame Landmark. What followed were six pages explaining why Landmark is not a cult, a page of why Landmark cannot be said to brainwash its enrollees, a page and a half of why I must not defame Werner Erhard or est, and a tedious summary explaining that should I "leave Landmark and its programs depicted in a false light ... Landmark is fully prepared to take the appropriate legal action." He included 23 letters of recommendation from happy Forum grads... [2]
Linda Chase has archived a sample of part of a "FedEX Package from Art Schreiber ... 66 pristine and crisp pages from Art, including this 9 page letter" at the "Rants and Raves" site.
[edit] History
Preservation of Landmark Education's reputation from suggestion of culthood becomes a difficult issue in recounting the official history of Landmark Education's origins - as the Hukill quote above implies. Its predecessor-organization, Erhard Seminars Training or est, founded by Werner Erhard, did get labelled as a cult — see for example the report of the thorough sociological participant observation of est by Steven Tipton (1982, page 289). [3] Thus at times Landmark Education attempts to appropriately distance itself from est and from Erhard as people, particulalry critics of the est organization, confuse the two organizations. An example is Art Schreiber's declaration of 2005-05-03 in the Landmark Education Litigation Archive:
Defendants constantly conflate Landmark and its programs with programs delivered in the 1970s and 1980s by Werner Erhard, popularly known as "est." Defendants are either being deliberately misleading or grossly negligent in doing so. When Landmark Education was founded in January 1991, it licensed certain program materials from Werner Erhard & Associates. In the 14 years since, Landmark Education's programs have evolved into very different offerings from those early materials. [4]
Whereas at other times Landmark shows a more favorable view of its origins, as in the statement:
Landmark Education's programs and initiatives are based on research and a technology originally developed by Werner Erhard... Landmark Education considers him a friend and respects and appreciates the invaluable contribution he has made to millions of people through his work. [5]
Furthermore, Landmark statistics count every Landmark Forum "graduate" from 1991 onwards, regardless of the state of development of the program materials:
Since 1991, approximately 880,000 mostly professional and well-educated seekers have taken the introductory Forum ... * Updated to reflect 2005 numbers. [6]
[edit] Freedom of Speech issues
[edit] Printed matter
Over and above matters of setting the record straight (according to its lights) after legal wrangles, Landmark Education also functions proactively to hinder the dissemination of conventionally published but potentially damaging material.
For example, Landmark Education's 1997 agreement with the new (pro-Scientology, post-1996) Cult Awareness Network (CAN) contains this clause on the distribution of Steven Pressman's book Outrageous Betrayal, a biography of the man commonly considered the originator of Landmark Education, Werner Erhard:
h. CAN also understands that Landmark would prefer that CAN not sell at all copies of a biography of Werner Hans Erhard by Steven Pressman entitle Outrageous Betrayal (St Martin's Press 1993)(the "Pressman Book"). CAN has not previously considered whether, after its emergence from bankruptcy, CAN would consider it appropriate to sell copies of the Pressman Book at all, for any purpose. In the interests of settling a dispute and in deference to Landmark's preference, however, CAN now agrees not to sell the Pressman Book for at least five years after CAN emerges from bankruptcy. [7]
On the other hand, Landmark Education has stated, per its General Counsel Art Schreiber — quoted in an article which the publisher ([[Red Herring (magazine) | Red Herring) has graced with the heading "Landmark Fires Back at EFF: Organization says its subpoena of Google and YouTube is self-protection, not free speech muzzle" — that "freedom of speech ... is essential". [8]
[edit] Online
For details of Landmark Education's attempts to prevent the distribution of what it regards as its copyrighted material over the Internet, see for example the article on the television documentary Journey to the country of the new gurus.
Compare Scientology versus the Internet.
[edit] Labor laws
Landmark Education's large-scale use of the voluntary unpaid labor of its "graduate" "assistants" has brought it to the attention of certain governmental authorities charged with monitoring and enforcing laws. Thus in France in June 1994 a raid on Landmark Education premises in Paris constate l’exploitation des bénévoles et dresse des procès-verbaux pour travail non déclaré [Translation: "ascertain[ed] the exploitation of the volunteers and [drew] up official reports on undeclared work"]. [9]
[edit] Legal classification of Landmark Education
Some governments, especially in Europe, have included Landmark Education in lists of or reports on cults and similar groups, thus using administrative means to set up legal and popular obstacles to the spread of the organization. Austrian, French and German authorities have at different times called the nature, methods and operations of Landmark Education into question. For an Austrian example, see the brochure published by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Social Security and the Generations (Bundesministerium für soziale Sicherheit und Generationen): "Sekten - Wissen schützt" [Cults: knowledge can protect]. [10]
Landmark Education's then subsidiary in France appeared in the list of cults appended to the 1995 report of the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France. This commission however has come under severe criticism and the French government has advised not to use the Commission's classifications as a basis for deciding an organization is a cult.
And Landmark Education continues to receive extensive coverage in the Berlin Senate report: Risiken und Nebenwirkungen: Informationen zu ausgewählten neuen religiösen und weltanschaulichen Bewegungen und Psychoangeboten [Risks and Side-effects: Information on selected new religious and world-view movements and on psycho-offerings], published by the Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Jugend und Sport (Senate Administration for Education, Youth and Sport).
The Berlin Senate later retracted its critical implication of Landmark Education and redefined it as a "life-help" organization. [11]
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Archived web-page of Landmark Education, 2000-06-20, retrieved 2006-11-22.
- ^ "The est of Friends" by Traci Hukill, From the July 9-15, 1998 issue of "Metro".
- ^ Tipton, Steven M. Getting saved from the sixties: moral meaning in conversion and cultural change. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
- ^ Declaration of Arthur Schreiber in the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, civil action 04-3022 (JCL), page 3. PDF image of document online at http:www.rickross.com/reference/landmark/landmark107.pdf as part of the Landmark Education Litigation Archive. (Retrieved 2006-11-22.)
- ^ Archived web-page of Landmark Education, 2000-06-20, retrieved 2006-11-22.
- ^ Archived web-page of Landmark Education, 2006-05-25, retrieved 2006-11-22.
- ^ Page 10 of "Landmark Settlement Agreement" with the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), revised 30 October 1997, signed 3 November 1997. Image of document available online as part of the "Landmark Education Litigation Archive" at http://www.rickross.com/reference/landmark/landmark132.pdf -- Retrieved 2006-11-20.
- ^ "Landmark Fires Back at EFF: Organization says its subpoena of Google and YouTube is self-protection, not free speech muzzle" at redherring.com, November 3 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-20
- ^ "Actualités sur les sectes en mai 2005" (in French)
- ^ Bundesministerium für soziale Sicherheit und Generationen: "Sekten - Wissen schützt" [Cults: knowledge can protect] - in German. Online at http://www.ilsehruby.at/Sektenbroschuere.html - retrieved 2006-11-22
- ^ Risiken und Nebenwirkungen: Informationen zu ausgewählten neuen religiösen und weltanschaulichen Bewegungen und Psychoangeboten [Risks and Side-effects: Information on selected new religious and world-view movements and on psycho-offerings], published by the Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Jugend und Sport (Senate Administration for Education, Youth and Sport). Online at http://www.berlin.de/sen/familie/sog_sekten_psychogruppen/index.html - retrieved 2006-11-22.
