On the first day of spring break, many UNCW students stayed in town to attend a solidarity rally in support of two New Hanover County residents who have been sued for slander by Titan America and Carolinas Cement Co. The lawsuit seeks $75,000 in damages from Kayne O. Darrell, a mother and housewife living in Castle Hayne, and David L. Hill, a Wilmington pediatrician.

About 250 people of all ages, from infants to retirees, attended the rally.

“The students were key players,” said Brinkley Hutchings, president of ECO, a student environmental organization at UNCW. “We responded to this lawsuit by helping to organize the rally.”

According to the suit, Darrell and Hill made certain defamatory and untrue statements at the Feb. 1, 2010 meeting of the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners. Videos of the statements were posted on YouTube and received hundreds of hits, according to the suit.

Darrell received a cease and desist letter from one of Titan’s attorneys, Gilbert C. Laite III, on Feb. 25, and she took down the video. The suit was filed the same day. Darrell said she was not aware that she was being sued until she read it on StarNewsOnline.com.

“What they [Darrell and Hill] said at the county commissioner’s meeting was based on fact,” said Hutchings, who spoke at the rally. “That can be easily cited. Everything is referenced online.”

The environmental organization PenderWatch & Conservancy is calling the complaint a SLAPP suit—a strategic lawsuit against public participation. The Barron’s Law Dictionary defines a SLAPP suit as a suit “filed without merit against an activist or group to chill their actions and draw effort away from their cause by forcing them to defend themselves against the suit.” At least 25 states have laws against SLAPP suits, but North Carolina does not.

Though Titan’s attorneys did not respond to the solidarity event with a comment, the slander complaint describes the group fighting the cement plant as a “small minority of extremists” who “have waged their campaign publicly in an attempt to instill fear in the public by aggressively and maliciously misstating facts, making broad and harmful insinuations, and creating and disseminating propaganda materials through baseless public tirades.”

Junior Brady Bradshaw, a member of ECO, said he thought the fight against Titan was a “losing battle” until he attended the rally. The solidarity gathering changed his mind. “It was amazing,” he said. “Our community is fired up about Titan cement.”

Along with Hill, Darrell and Hutchings, attorney Deborah Butler and pediatrician Edgar Horger spoke at the rally.

Hutchings explained that students are involved not only because they are concerned with the health of the community, but because of the need to uphold the reputation of UNCW’s locale. Big industry, air pollution and smokestacks are not going to draw progressive students, she said.

“It’s the David and Goliath fight,” said Hutchings. “It’s [Titan’s] last-ditch effort to put a zipper on our mouths, but it’s not going to work.”