from the Barbra,-get-your-gun dept
Welcome to the arena, Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society! Here’s your Streisand Beachfront Property commemorative dinner plates which, we must inform you, contain massive amounts of lead and should never, for any reason, be used as dinner plates.
PTK (as its abbreviated everywhere, even by the “society” itself) considers itself to be above the frat fray, despite its liberal use of the Greek alphabet. Instead, it’s a “society” that helps colleges students help themselves without having to resort to blackout drinking or ill-advised mascot thievery.
But it’s not quite smart enough. Toni Marek — a former volunteer who worked for PTK — is publishing a book based on her experiences there. Those experiences weren’t pleasant. She attended a dinner for the society, during which PTK Executive Director Rod Risely, allegedly forcibly pushed his hand between her legs. This followed several other sexual transgressions from Risely, ranging from the verbal to the physical during Marek’s brief tenure with PTK.
Marek intended to release her book (for free) on April 3, 2025, a date that deliberately coincided with PTK’s national convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Just as deliberately, PTK sought a restraining order blocking the book’s release prior to that date but extending past the end of its national convention.
PTK got what it wanted: a compliant judge. County Judge Kemper Stephen Williams not only bought everything PTK was selling in its unopposed motion, but granted a temporary restraining order that prevents Marek from distributing her book during the crucial PR period surrounding the society’s national convention. (h/t Popehat)
The opening paragraph of the prior restraint order [PDF] (call it what it is, folks) is pure frontier judicial gibberish:
On this date the Court heard Plaintiff Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society’s (“PTK”) application for a temporary restraining order against Defendant Toni Marek. The application was presented ex parte without notice to the Defendant. The Court, after considering Plaintiff’s TRO application, the pleadings, the declarations, other evidence submitted, and arguments of counsel, finds that the application is well-taken and should be in all things GRANTED.
I’m sorry, but all of these things cannot be true. An “ex parte” presentation only involves one party. So, there’s no way the judge can claim he truly considered everything that needed to be considered before John Hancocking PTK’s pre-written TRO pretty much unaltered. At this point, the judge only has one set of pleadings, declarations, evidence, and a single set of counsel. There was no emergency here, so there was no reason to keep Toni Marek and her counsel from being heard.
This is just a judge deciding the everything he just read must be true, even though it’s pretty clear the facts PTK presented aren’t actually facts.
However you may personally feel about Marc Randazza, one thing he does really well is embarrass courts that engage in clearly unconstitutional actions. Randazza’s motion [PDF] to revoke the order sets Judge Williams and his assertions on fire.
This aggression will not stand:
The TRO forbids Ms. Marek from publishing a book and states that she will not be permitted to publish her book until she hands it to PTK and allows PTK to determine what further prior restraints it wants from this Court. This is not just an unlawful prior restraint, but a never-before-seen type of prior restraint that acts in anticipation of a further prior restraint. It should never have been issued, and it must be dissolved.
So, clearly nothing justifies this prior restraint. But even the allegations are sketchy as hell. If this looks like a SLAPP suit, it’s because it’s a SLAPP suit. PTK is trying to prevent Marek from publishing a book that is, in part, based on records literally everyone already has access to.
PTK alleges, without proof, that some of the information in Marek’s book “is confidential and protected by non-disclosure agreements” and “is protected by the attorney-client privilege and/or work product doctrine.” It is not only without proof, but PTK’s very complaint makes it clear that this is false. PTK acknowledges that Ms. Marek obtained the information legally through interviews with third parties and public records requests. Let that sink in. PTK seeks to censor the publication of information received from public records requests.
Finally, there’s this part, which isn’t going to be fun for the judge to read, but needs to be said this pointedly and clearly to ensure he doesn’t double-down on the unconstitutionality.
Here, we have an injunction, based entirely upon anticipated protected speech by Defendant Marek, that contains a double prior restraint. It not only prohibits her from publishing her book as intended on April 3, 2025, but also provides Plaintiff with the sole discretion to determine what she is and is not allowed to say in her book. See TRO, ¶¶ A, B. Meanwhile, even if a tiny portion of the book were legally unpublishable (which is absurd), the Court enjoined the entire book from publication, and the Court has been manipulated by PTK into doing so for no better reason than to help PTK avoid embarrassment during its conference. The Order is wrong and PTK could not have possibly been ignorant to that fact.
That’s why PTK sought the smallest venue it could find to engage in this CYA Hail Mary play. It went to a county court solely because it increased its chances of slipping something past a judge unlikely to have racked up a lot of experience in First Amendment cases. It worked. This judge not only allowed PTK to present its case completely unopposed, he gave it everything it asked for, presumably deciding that whatever real justice might be applied could always wait until later.
If PTK had just sat back and allowed Marek to publish her book, it likely would have walked away from this pretty much unscathed. After the initial interest died down, PTK could go back to business as usual. Instead, it chose to be a bully, punching down in hopes of silencing a single critic for good. Because it chose this path, it will reap what it has sown: the resurgence of public discussion involving allegations that are now at least a decade old. And its extreme defensiveness in the face of this very minor threat makes an implicit statement that backs up Marek’s allegations. After all, if there were no truth to them, PTK would have nothing to worry about, much less sue about.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, censorship, marc randazza, prior restraint, streisand effect, texas, toni marek
Companies: phi theta kappa honor society
