The vice president of an Albuquerque economic policy think tank received a cease and desist letter in response to a post on his website.
Patrick Brenner, vice president of the Rio Grande Foundation, confirmed on social media that he was told in a letter to cease and desist by Rogers Towers, a law firm in Jacksonville, Fla., after his anti-critical race theory post went live on Brenner4NM.org.
"I have been served a cease and desist notice for exposing Critical Race Theory at Rio Rancho Public Schools," Brenner tweeted.
Rio Grande Foundation Vice President Patrick Brenner
| brenner4nm.org
The letter explains that Brenner’s post, titled “Critical Race Theory is very present in Rio Rancho Public Schools,” committed copyright infringement “by using certain training materials that Vector offers to educators for purchase by posting exact copies of those materials.”
The order further accuses Brenner of making "multiple inaccurate characterizations of Vector’s training program, Cultural Competence and Racial Bias", as well as of illegally obtaining screenshots of the material. It demanded the images and the post be removed.
Vector states in the order that since they hold copyrights of the material and/or protectable trade-secret rights, "Vector cannot and will not allow an unlicensed third party to post exact reproductions of its copyrighted materials on a publicly accessible website,” the correspondence said.
As of Sept. 2, the screenshots had been removed from the post but the post itself remained available.