Colson v. Stieg

John Calvin Colson filed suit in the circuit court of De Kalb County charging that the defendant, Lewis Stieg, had published certain defamatory remarks about the plaintiff’s performance of his duties as an assistant professor in the Department of Library Science at Northern Illinois University. Lewis Stieg was chairman of the department. The plaintiff was first employed by Northern Illinois University in 1975 and had served in the capacity of assistant professor since that time. He had moved from Denver, Colorado, to accept a position at Northern with the expectation that he would be granted…