Jordan Gruver Awarded $2.5 million Against the Klan

It was the night of July 29-30 2006 that 16-year-old Jordan Gruver attended the Meade County Fair in Brandenburg, Kentucky. It was that same night that Ron Edwards, leader of the Imperial Klans of America, sent his supporters on a membership recruitment drive to the same fair. It was that night that changed Jordan's life forever.

Jordan Gruver is an American citizen born in Bismarck, North Dakota. His father was from Panama and his mother is of Native-American descent from Kentucky. He was spotted at the fair by four of the klan members:

• Jarred Hensley, the Ohio Klan's "Grand Titan." - the second highest klan official in the state.


• Andrew Watkins, the Klan's "Imperial Gothi" and webmaster


• Joshua Cowles, the Klan's "Exalted Cyclops" and  national director of the klan's recruitment effort


• Matthew Roberts, the Ohio Klan's "Exalted Cyclops"

The four men, who had all been drinking at the fair, mistakenly thought Jordan was an illegal Latino immigrant. They approached him and without provocation began calling him racial epithets like " illegal spic". They then proceeded to spit on him and poured alcohol over him.

Two of the men - Hensley and Watkins, with the other two men standing close by - began to attack Jordan, knocking him to the ground, kicking and hitting him repeatedly. At 5'3" tall and weighing 150 lbs, 16-year-old Jordan was no match for the two men, one of whom weighed 300 lbs and was 6'5" tall.

During the attack Jordan suffered extreme pain and severe physical injuries including a broken jaw which had to be wired shut, broken teeth, a broken left forearm and two cracked ribs. He now has permanent nerve damage. The attack also traumatized Jordan to the point of severe emotional distress. He doesn't leave his house and rarely sleeps more than two hours at a time because of his nightmares.

Both men responsible for the attack on Jordan Gruver, Jarred Hensley and Andrew Watkins, went through the Kentucky criminal court system, striking a plea bargain. They both served 2-year sentences in the Kentucky state prison system.  The case was not however treated as a hate crime.

Jordan Gruver, now 19 years old, fought back and, with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of Americas' leading civil rights organizations, he sued the Imperial Klans of America (IKA); its leader, Ron Edwards; his two attackers (Watkins and Hensley); and Joshua Crowles who was present at the time of the attack and failed to prevent it; for $6 million seeking both compensatory and punitive damages.

The original personal injury lawsuit named Ron Edwards, leader of the Imperial Klans of America, Jarred Hensley, Andrew Watkins and Joshua Cowles as defendants. See a copy of the complaint here. However before the trial started both Watkins and Cowles settled with Gruver. The trial went forward against Edwards and Hensley.

The lawsuit claimed that as part of an official recruiting drive organized by the IKA leadership, members went to the Meade County Fairgrounds in Brandenburg, Ky., to hand out business cards and flyers advertising a "white-only" IKA function. This is where the encounter with Jordan Gurver occurred.

Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPL Center), discusses the lawsuit against the IKA in the video below and answers questions about the IKA on the SPL Center's website here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n28NGMuhyQM]

The following video shows defendants - Ron Edwards and Jarred Hensley along with Steve Edwards, President of Supreme White Alliance, son of Ron Edwards - stating their case for white power: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31dZ27pPVgk&eurl=http://www.hillbillyreport.com/blog/2008/11/jordan-gruver-vs-imperial-klans-of-america.html]

On its Web site, the Imperial Klans of America refers to itself as a Christian organization exercising its rights of free speech and assembly under the U.S. Constitution. The site carries this proviso:

"If you are not of the White race, this Web site is not for the likes of YOU!" We reserve the right of free speech to state our views whether our enemies like it or not. The IKA hates: Muds, spics, kikes and niggers. This is our God given right! In no way do we advocate violence. We believe in educating our people to the monopolistic Jewish control of the world's banks, governments, and media. White education is what ZOG hates and why it tries to imprison White Racialists.

Ron Edwards lives in a trailer on the Klan's heavily guarded, gated compound in rural Dawson Springs, Kentucky. The compound is the site of the Klan's annual white power rally and music festival, know as "Nordic Fest". It was at the compound, the lawsuit alleges, that the Klan incited its members to use violence against minorities. The center is seeking to win a judgment that would allow it to seize up to $6 million in assets.

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=dawson+springs,+ky&sll=37.160317,-95.712891&sspn=32.636267,79.101563&ie=UTF8&s=AARTsJrsiq7PWO-5D_U67B_ju_pDDJiz0g&ll=37.18439,-87.651672&spn=0.437637,1.373291&z=9&output=embed&w=500&h=200]

Richard Cohen, the law center's president, said he hoped that the jury would award enough in damages to put the IKA out of business:

"The Imperial Klans of America is one of the largest Klan organizations in the country. It promotes violence and intimidation against racial and ethnic minorities, homosexuals and so-called 'race traitors.' While on a recruiting mission, members of this organization targeted and viciously beat our client solely because he has brown skin.

"Our lawsuit seeks justice and compensation for the victim of this brutal hate crime. We also hope that the monetary damages will be sufficient to put the organization out of business and send a strong message to other hate groups and their followers that this type of racial violence will not be tolerated."

The trial lasted for 3 days and, after deliberating for 6 hours, an all-white jury trial comprised of 14 people - 7 men and 7 women - awarded Jordan Gruver a total of $2.5 million. $1.5 million for lost wages and medical expenses and the jury laid $1 million in punitive damages solely on Ron Edwards.

"We look forward to collecting every dime that we can for our client and to putting the Imperial Klans of America out of business," said SPLC founder and chief trial attorney Morris Dees. "It's all about the money. It's all about the money. If you stop the money, you'll cut the organization off."

"The people of Meade County, Kentucky, have spoken loudly and clearly. And what they've said is that ethnic violence has no place in our society, that those who promote hate and violence will be held accountable and made to pay a steep price," Dees said.

The heavily tattooed Edwards plans to appeal the verdict. Despite the judgment, Edwards said the KKK will remain active. "We're not going away," Edwards said.

"I'm overwhelmed. I'm victorious," Gruver said. "And, I'm also sad. I'm sad because those guys are still going to be the same way that they were. That will never change."

John Gruver - in an interview with his mother, Cindy, his pregnant girlfriend and his brother - summed it up nicely when he said in the video below: "Kentucky is a good state but it has some bad people in it"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T3lD_7PF5Y]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmjk1GELvAQ]

School Apologizes to Student Janitor

It never fails to amaze me how asinine and full of bigotry some people can be. The following racially-charged story is set in an institution of higher learning......yes, a university!! It involves a student, Keith John Sampson, working as a janitor; a co-worker, Nakea William; a book: Todd Tucker's "Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan"; the school's affirmative-action officer, Lillian Charleston, and the school's administration. Before the situation is resolved the ACLU, FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) and the Wall Street Journal all got involved.

It all began at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), when Keith Sampson, a white man, brought a history book to read in the break room of the university where he studies and works as a janitor. The book was about the defeat of the Ku Klux Klan by Notre Dame students in a 1924 street brawl. Sampson, who is part Irish explains it this way:

The book was Todd Tucker's "Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan"; I was reading it on break from my campus job as a janitor. The same book is in the university library.

Tucker recounts events of 1924, when the loathsome Klan was a dominant force in Indiana - until it went to South Bend to taunt the Irish Catholic students at the University of Notre Dame.

When the KKK tried to rally, the students confronted them. They stole Klan robes and destroyed their crosses, driving the KKK out of town in a downpour.

I read the historic encounter and imagined myself with these brave Irish Catholics, as they street-fought the Klan. (I'm part-Irish, and was raised Catholic.)

One of his co-workers, Nakea William, complained about his reading material which started the following ridiculous chain of events in motion:

• Mr. Sampson was in short order visited by his union representative, who informed him he must not bring this book to the break room, and that he could be fired. Taking the book to the campus, Mr. Sampson says he was told, was "like bringing pornography to work." That it was a history of the battle students waged against the Klan in the 1920s in no way impressed the union rep.




• The assistant affirmative action officer who next summoned the student was similarly unimpressed. Indeed she was, Mr. Sampson says, irate at his explanation that he was, after all, reading a scholarly book. "The Klan still rules Indiana," Marguerite Watkins told him – didn't he know that? Mr. Sampson, by now dazed, pointed out that this book was carried in the university library. Yes, she retorted, you can get Klan propaganda in the library.

The matter was brought to the attention of Lillian Charleston, the school's affirmative-action officer who responded to the incident by writing Sampson the following letter:

Upon review of this matter, we conclude that your conduct constitutes racial harassment in that you demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your co-workers who repeatedly requested that you refrain from reading the book which has such an inflammatory and offensive topic in their presence. You contend that you weren't aware of the offensive nature of the topic and were reading the book about the KKK to better understand discrimination. However you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black co-workers. Furthermore, employing the legal "reasonable person standard," a majority of adults are aware of and understand how repugnant the KKK is to African Americans, their reactions to the Klan, and the reasonableness of the request that you not read the book in their presence.

During your meeting with Marguerite Watkins, Assistant Affirmative Action Officer [sic] you were instructed to stop reading the book in the immediate presence of your co-workers and when reading the book to sit apart from the immediate proximity of these co-workers. Please be advised, any future substantiated conduct of a similar nature could result in serious disciplinary action.

After the official judgment against him, Mr. Sampson turned to the Indiana state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose office contacted university attorneys. The case also got some sharp local press coverage that threatened to get wider......it was a great story:  A university had brought a case against a student on grounds of a book he had been reading.

Bowing to the pressure of the publicity surrounding the case, Lillian Charleston decided to revise her comments and wrote another letter to Simpson to clarify the first one:

And so the new letter to Mr. Sampson by affirmative action officer Charleston brought word that she wished to clarify her previous letter, and to say it was "permissible for him to read scholarly books or other materials on break time." About the essential and only theme of the first letter – the "racially abhorrent" subject of the book – or the warnings that any "future substantiated conduct of a similar nature could mean serious disciplinary action" – there was not a word. She had meant in that first letter, she said, only to address "conduct" that caused concern among his co-workers.

What that conduct was, the affirmative action officer did not reveal – but she had delivered the message rewriting the history of the case. Absolutely and for certain there had been no problem about any book he had been reading.

What, then, was the offense? "Harassing behavior." While reading the book? What the behavior was, one learned, could never be revealed. There was, of course, no other offensive behavior.

University Chancellor Charles R. Bantz, after being pressured by FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) as well as the ACLU, finally sent them a letter expressing regret over this affair, and testifying to his profound commitment to freedom of expression. After it was pointed out that the Chancellor "forgot" to express his regrets to the person most affected by the entire incident......Keith John Sampson, he also sent the following letter address to Sampson:

I want to offer you my apology for the problems associated with the letter you received from the Affirmative Action Office.........A recent column in the Wall Street Journal reminded me that while I had expressed my regrets to......the Indiana Civil Liberties Union and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.....I had not done so to you personally.

I can candidly say we regret this situation took place....