Applied Epistemology

UC Irvine revives suit against philosopher's widow

By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
April 11, 2007

The battle for control of a dead French philosopher's archives took another odd turn last week when UC Irvine officials said they had revived their lawsuit against his widow — at her request.

The school has been wrangling with the heirs of Jacques Derrida, the founder of an influential philosophy called deconstruction, for more than two years.

In November, UCI sued Derrida's estate in federal court, a move that infuriated his admirers at the school and beyond. After a small faculty protest, UCI promised to drop the lawsuit and resume negotiations with Derrida's widow over a final resting place for his scholarly papers.

But a settlement has proved elusive. At the heart of the impasse are a Florida vampire expert and a three-paragraph document that Derrida signed in 1990.

In the document, Derrida pledged to donate his archives to UCI, where he taught part time. However, shortly before his death in 2004, the pipe-puffing philosopher changed his tune. Derrida threatened to torpedo the archive agreement unless school officials halted their investigation into a Russian studies professor accused of sexually harassing a female grad student.

UCI didn't acquiesce. The professor, Dragan Kujundzic, who taught a popular class on vampires and signed his e-mails with a colon to symbolize Dracula bite marks, was demoted, banished from campus without pay for two quarters and ordered to enroll in sexual harassment counseling.

Although a school probe concluded that Kujundzic's four encounters with the woman were consensual, it said he nevertheless had violated a university policy that bars faculty members from dating students they supervise.

The student, who said she felt coerced to have sex because of Kujundzic's influence over her academic career, then sued him and the university, a case that was recently settled out of court for $100,000 — of which $20,000 came from Kujundzic's pocket.

Kujundzic left Irvine in 2005 for a job at the University of Florida.

But he continues to be a stumbling block in UCI's bid for control of Derrida's archives.

Derrida's widow, Marguerite, has steadfastly refused to relinquish her husband's papers to the university, citing the case.

She has said UCI can keep the extensive Derrida collection it already has, but the rest of his papers would go to the Institute of Contemporary Publishing Archives in France.

In February, after UCI promised to drop its lawsuit against Derrida's widow and sons, the school began negotiating to obtain photocopies of his remaining papers.

But UCI's predicted quick resolution has failed to materialize — and the lawsuit is still on the books.

"Although the university took steps to dismiss the lawsuit, Madame Derrida said she would prefer to keep the suit on file while continuing discussions," UCI spokeswoman Christine Byrd said.

Byrd acknowledged that it seemed odd for Derrida's widow to preserve a lawsuit against herself, but declined to discuss possible motives.

"Madame Derrida asked that we not share information about our ongoing discussions with her," Byrd said.

Derrida's widow, who lives in France, didn't respond to a Times request for comment.