By Karen Gutierrez
The Cincinnati Enquirer

COVINGTON - A professor's fiery words following Cincinnati's 2001 racial unrest have surfaced again - this time in federal court, where the professor is suing Fox News for libel.

A jury this week began hearing arguments in the case, which pits Clinton Hewan, a political science professor at Northern Kentucky University, against the national news network.

Hewan claims he was libeled by a May 2, 2001, article on the network's Web site, Foxnews.com. As a result of that article, the professor's reputation was ruined, and he received death threats that made him fear for his safety, his attorneys said Tuesday.

The Fox piece was about Hewan's remarks at an April 19, 2001, NKU forum on racism. That forum took place 12 days after a Cincinnati police officer shot and killed Timothy Thomas, an unarmed, African-American man fleeing officers.

At the NKU forum, Hewan commented on the Thomas case, and NKU's campus newspaper, the Northerner, printed his words this way: "I do not advocate any violence as an initiate. But in the case of willful murder, the family (of Thomas) should go out and get that policeman." The professor went on to say the family should "quietly stalk that S.O.B. and take him out," the Northerner reported.

Within a day, NKU President James Votruba confirmed that Hewan said those words by speaking with several administrators who attended the forum. In an e-mail to the campus, Votruba condemned the remarks as "indefensible."

Hewan quickly asserted that his remarks had been taken out of context. He had not been advocating violence, he said, but merely presenting hypothetical events that could occur if people were pushed to the limit by police brutality.

In subsequent interviews, Votruba noted that Hewan disagreed with the portrayal of his comments. But the Fox News article did not immediately make this clear.

The article was headlined, "Prof's Kill-a-Cop Comments Prompt Outcry at College Near Cincinnati."

The first paragraph stated, "A college professor's call for deadly vigilante justice against the Cincinnati police officer whose shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old boy sparked several days of riots in April is sending shock waves across the Cincinnati-area university where he works."

A few paragraphs later, the article reported Hewan's claim that his remarks were taken out of context, but it didn't elaborate until many paragraphs down, said Chris Jenkins, one of Hewan's attorneys.

E-mail kgutierrez@enquirer.com