Paula Rothermel

This afternoon I received an email message from Paula Rothermel, in which she claims to have taken legal advice about supposedly defamatory statements which I have made about her. I have been looking into the matter and find that although she is currently in the general region of the Swiss city of Solothurn, she looked at my blog this afternoon. The page which has evidently annoyed her, contained the following paragraph;

"I have looked previously at Paula Rothermel's work on literacy among home educated children. Her response was to pull the original work from her website, thus making it impossible for the casual enquirer to check the methodology."

Now I confess myself puzzled as to how this might appear defamatory. It is perfectly true that I have written earlier about her work on literacy among home educated children, so that part cannot be causing offence. Since three days after I posted this, she pulled the thesis from her website, thus making it impossible for the casual enquirer to check her methodology, I doubt that this could be the bit she objects to. The only part left is my hypothesising a causal link between my writing about the research and her making the thesis unavailable.

This looks to me like an attempt to silence legitimate comment upon a matter of great interest to home educators. I shall keep readers posted of any further developments.