Opinion ID: 623947
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Count 5: University of Delaware administrator Kathleen Kerr

Text: In the fall of 2007, the University of Delaware initiated a new diversity training program that attracted the attention of the national media and also White. Kathleen Kerr, who was the Director of Residential Life and played a major role in the new program, was in a meeting when her assistant, Carol Bedgar, received a telephone call for Kerr. The caller identified himself as Commander Bill White of the American White Workers' Party. The caller asked to speak with Kerr, and, after Bedgar informed him that Kerr was not in the office, the caller said that he knew that she was there because he had just spoken to her husband Chris. The caller then recited Kerr's home telephone number and a residential address that Bedgar recognized as the address of Kerr's father in New Jersey. When Bedgar asked if she could take a message, the caller replied, Yes. Just tell her that people that think the way she thinks, we hunt down and shoot. According to Bedgar, the caller delivered this message in a cold and dead sounding tone of voice. Bedgar later testified that after receiving the call, she sensed evil and began to pray for safety. When advised of the call, Kerr broke down and began to cry out of concern for her family and her family's safety. (At trial, White disputed that he had been the caller. The caller, however, identified himself to Bedgar as Bill White, and telephone records showed that a telephone call had been placed on that day from White's home to Kerr's office.) Bedgar, Kerr, and the staff of the University of Delaware took the call as a very serious threat and called the police. Kerr and University officials were also alerted to White's website, Overthrow.com, which has a post entitled University of Delaware's Marxist Thought Reform. The website listed Kerr's full name, email address, date of birth, home telephone number listed as confirmed, and father's address in New Jersey mistakenly calling it her husband's address. The website also listed the University President's full name, email address, date of birth, spouse's name, spouse's date of birth, home address, vacation home address, and telephone numbers. The website instructed readers to go to their homes, and beneath Kerr's information were the words, We shot Marxists sixty years ago, we can shoot them again! The University's Chief of Police also located another web entry entitled Smash the University of Delaware, which included the personal information of Kerr and the University President with the instruction, You know what to do. Get to work! As a result of this telephone call and the website postings, University of Delaware President Harker convened an emergency meeting of the top administrators and law enforcement officials at the University to discuss appropriate security measures in response to the threats. The FBI, local law enforcement officers, and University police took the telephone call as a serious threat, and law enforcement officers guarded Kerr and her family at work and home for the next several days. Kerr and her husband would not let their children play outside for several weeks for fear of their safety, and Kerr's father was advised by police not to leave his house for several days, to secure all doors, to cover all windows, and to cancel his plans to participate in a community event.