I bundled all the research in the Copyrights list into a formal dissertation, with 50 sections that I later called “A Fractal Theory of Everything Based on the Three Body Problem.” This is what the Chief Legal Officer of the University of Texas System had to say about that.
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Subject: Privacy Act, Copyright Act and Public Information Act
From: Lee Smith <lsmith@mail.utexas.edu>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:16:42 -0500
To: Bill Clark <btubill@netscape.com>
I hope all is going well with your relocation to Leon County. I cannot help but feel that creating a measure of distance between yourself and the Austin area will open you up new opportunities as you finally close this chapter of your life. Just the elimination of the stress alone will no doubt add years to your productive life. I am very encouraged by your recent statement that you intend to return to the practice of engineering and will soon begin interviewing with major Aerospace companies around the nation, and I certainly wish you well in this endeavor.
Your recent email suggests to me that there may be some confusion regarding the application of the Privacy Act (FERPA) to the document you refer to as your “dissertation”. The unsolicited document that you hand delivered to my office last August is indeed a University record, but it is not an “educational record” covered by the Privacy act. It is, however, covered by the Copyright Act. Because the University is a state agency, the document to which you refer is a state agency record subject to normal state agency record retention, inspection and destruction policies established under state law (The Texas Public Information Act), provided only that “copies” can only be made with the permission of the copyright holder, and that would be you. With that understanding, please note that while anyone can “inspect” that document pursuant to state law, we will not provide “copies” of that document to anyone without your permission.
Although you are now moving on with your life and all of this will soon become ancient history, just for the record, I thought this might be as good a time as any to correct just a few of the false statements that run through some of your emails and web postings that may simply be additional points of confusion.
- You state, falsely, that you have a “grievance” pending with the University over your The truth is, because all of your administrative appeals have already been exhausted, there are no additional “grievances” that can be pursued, at least not within the University.
- You state, falsely, that you were “never given” any reason for your dismissal from the PhD The truth is, you simply disagree with the reasons you were given.
- You state, falsely, that you were a PhD Candidate that “completed all for Ph.D. but dissertation defense. The truth is, you were never admitted to PhD Candidacy because you never satisfied the requirements for PhD Candidacy.
- You state, falsely, that the written material you posted on your website and delivered to myself and various individuals as your “PhD Dissertation”. The truth is, a research paper is only that, and does not become a “dissertation” until a faculty committee approves it as such, and that never happened.
- You state, falsely, that the engineering faculty never evaluated the substance of your research. The truth is, a faculty panel engaged in a thorough examination of substance of your research and you simply disagree with their determination that your research was, essentially, unscholarly.
- You state, falsely, that you cannot now get an engineering license and that UT is somehow responsible
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Privacy Act, Copyright Act and Public Information Act
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for this. The truth is, you were a licensed engineer before you were admitted to the PhD program and your academic status, or non-status, with the University presents no impediment whatsoever to your engineering license. The truth is, you voluntarily surrendered your perfectly valid engineering license and, except for satisfying the continuing education requirements, you are eligible to have your engineering license reinstated any time you wish.
- You state, falsely, that you cannot get employment and that UT is somehow responsible for this. The truth is, you were a practicing engineer without a PhD before you voluntarily surrendered your license and there is nothing prevents you from reinstating your engineering license and practicing engineering again any time you As for your ability to obtain letters of recommendation, by their nature, letters of recommendation are voluntary honest expressions of the personal opinions of the writer. No faculty member can be compelled to provide a letter of recommendation and no faculty member can be compelled to say positive things that they do not honestly believe about a a person’s scholarship and compliance and progress and cooperation. The faculty members in our College of Engineering that are familiar with your lack of scholarship, lack of compliance, lack of progress and lack of cooperation with the reasonable requirements of your supervising faculty, have all stated that they do not choose to give you a letter of recommendation. This is their choice. It strikes me that you want letters of recommendation, you will have to find someone outside of The University of Texas that holds you in sufficiently high regard that they can honestly recommend you, because am not aware of anyone here that fits that description.
Bill, as I have said, I wish you well in your new endeavor. Let me know how you are doing. Lee Smith
Associate Vice President for Legal Affairs
The University of Texas at Austin
At 09:37 PM 4/17/2005, you wrote:
Dr. Smith,
I had my dissertation back on the web for a few days and a couple of UT professors – in physics and math – were interested. I started to show them the complete project; then no.
This email is to reconfirm to you that you are NOT to give anybody a copy ofmy research under any circumstances without my written permission to do so.
WH Clark
This is the document is referring to. It’s basically 50 small papers, most of my research in grad school – including (1) the solar system model, (2) the Mars trajectory solution and FORTRAN code, and (3) the semiconductor model. This is a later version (maybe 2 years later) after I added a couple of sci fi chapters and remaned it from “The General Solution of the Unrestricted Three Body Problem.” I have the original but it’s full of marks and notes. I’ll post a clean original when I find one.
