BOCA RATON, Fla. – A Florida Atlantic University professor is in the process of getting fired after allegedly harassing the family of a child who died in the Sandy Hook massacre by claiming he never existed. 
 
 James Tracy, Associate Professor at the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, has brought negative attention to the University since 2013. He wrote on his private blog, Memory Hole, that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged. 
 
 FAU reprimanded him, but only because he didn’t make it clear that his conspiracy theory was separate from that of the University’s, according to the Sun Sentinel. He has since continued to claim that mass shootings such as those in Paris and San Bernardino were also faked on his blog. 
 
 Last Thursday, parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook massacre decided to speak out in an editorial on the Sun Sentinel. 
 
 Veronique and Lenny Pozner, whose son, Noah, died at Sandy Hook said Tracy was harassing them, demanding evidence that Noah lived and that Veronique and Lenny were his parents. 
 
 The Pozners say that when they didn’t respond, Tracy “subjected us to ridicule and contempt … boasting to his readers that the ‘unfulfilled request’ was ‘noteworthy’ because we had used copyright claims to ‘thwart continued research of the Sandy Hook massacre event.’” 
 
 Tracy even went so far as to claim the parents made of well financially from the tragedy, “soliciting contributions from generous yet misinformed Americans, where the families have averaged more than $1 million apiece.” He also said that Noah’s death certificate was “revealed as a fabrication.” 
 
 The Pozners told the Sentinel he “personally sought to cause our family pain and anguish by publicly demonizing our attempts to keep cherished photos of our slain son from falling into the hands of conspiracy theorists.” 
 
 On Wednesday, FAU recommended Tracy for termination. He has 10 days to file an appeal, and then a final action will be taken. The University did not comment further on their motives for Tracy’s termination. 
 
 The Pozners said they “are relieved that truth and honor prevailed.” ||||| Florida Atlantic University is trying to fire James Tracy, a controversial professor whose conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre and other tragedies brought the school unwanted publicity. 
 
 An FAU administrator gave Tracy a letter Wednesday saying he was being recommended for termination. He has 10 days to file an appeal, “after which final action may be taken,” a university statement said. 
 
 FAU officials wouldn’t give the exact reason, saying it’s the school's policy not to comment on personnel matters. But the decision comes less than a week after a public feud between Tracy and the parents of a boy who died at Sandy Hook. 
 
 Tracy, who couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday, first received notoriety in early 2013, after he wrote on his private blog, Memory Hole, that the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn., was likely staged. At the time, he received a reprimand because the university said he failed to make it clear his views didn’t represent those of the university. 
 
 Since then, Tracy claimed that almost every mass shooting or attack in the United States has been a hoax, including ones at the Boston Marathon, the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., and the recent shooting in San Bernadino, Calif. 
 
 An FAU administrator said in 2013 that Tracy’s actions resulted in a number of negative consequences for the school. But officials determined at the time that he couldn’t be fired for views he expressed on his own private blog and mostly ignored his posts. 
 
 However, the issue heated up again last week, when Veronique and Lenny Pozner, whose son, Noah, died at Sandy Hook, wrote an editorial in the Sun Sentinel accusing Tracy of taunting them. 
 
 “Tracy is among those who have personally sought to cause our family pain and anguish by publicly demonizing our attempts to keep cherished photos of our slain son from falling into the hands of conspiracy theorists,” they wrote in the Dec. 10 opinion piece. 
 
 They said he even sent them a certified letter demanding proof that Noah once lived, that they were his parents and owned the rights to the photo. 
 
 “We found this so outrageous and unsettling that we filed a police report for harassment,” they wrote. “Once Tracy realized we would not respond, he subjected us to ridicule and contempt on his blog, boasting to his readers that the ‘unfulfilled request’ was ‘noteworthy’ because we had used copyright claims to ‘thwart continued research of the Sandy Hook massacre event.’ 
 
 Tracy lashed back, with comments that were posted on a "Sandy Hook Hoax" Facebook page. 
 
 “The local conspirators in Newtown, such as the alleged parents of the murdered children, including Lenny and Veronique Pozner, have made out very well financially, soliciting contributions from generous yet misinformed Americans, where the families have averaged more than $1 million apiece." 
 
 “The only proof Lenny has produced that Noah died in Sandy Hook is a death certificate he provided to one of the book’s contributors, which has been revealed as a fabrication,” according to the comments attributed to Tracy. “If Noah actually died, there would have been no reason to fake it.” 
 
 Lenny Pozner issued a brief statement Tuesday night. "Veronique and I are relieved that truth and honor prevailed," he said. 
 
 Here is the statement from FAU: 
 
 December 16, 2015 
 
 In light of numerous requests from media outlets and the public, the University makes the following statement: 
 
 Today, James Tracy, an associate professor in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, was served a Notice of Proposed Discipline — Termination by the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Florida Atlantic University. 
 
 In accordance with the University’s Collective Bargaining Agreement with the United Faculty of Florida union, by which the University and James Tracy are bound, faculty who receive such notice are afforded a grievance process. James Tracy has 10 days to respond to the notice after which final action may be taken. 
 
 In accordance with university practice regarding personnel issues, the university will make no further comment for the time being. 
 
 stravis@sunsentinel.com or 561-243-6637 ||||| It’s been three years since we last embraced our precious little boy, Noah. At six-years-old, he was the youngest child murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. While our family may have managed to live through this tragedy, the passage of time has nowhere near dimmed the vivid memory of that day nor made it any less difficult for us to cope with the pain and anguish of losing our only son. 
 
 The heartache of burying a child is a sorrow we would not wish upon anyone. Yet to our horror, we have found that there are some in this society who lack empathy for the suffering of others. Among them are the conspiracy theorists that deny our tragedy was real. They seek us out and accuse us of being government agents who are faking our grief and lying about our loss. 
 
 Each new high-profile act of violence inspires more conspiracies and creates new victims of harassment and defamation, whether it be the Boston Bombing, the terrorist attacks in Paris or the most recent massacre in San Bernardino, CA. In that instance, a lawyer for the family of the shooters said Sandy Hook did not happen. And don't get us started on Donald Trump and his rantings on the Alex Jones radio show. It is obvious by the demographics of the show's audience that Trump appeared as a guest looking for votes from the conspiracy crowd. 
 
 Although many of these tormentors persecute us behind anonymous online identities, some do so openly and even proffer their professional credentials in an attempt to lend credence to their allegations. In this piece we want to focus on someone who is chief among the conspiracy theorists -- Florida Atlantic University Professor James Tracy. 
 
 A plethora of conspiracies arose after Sandy Hook, but none received as much mainstream publicity as Tracy, who suggested that the shooting never occurred and the Obama administration had staged the “event” to prepare the country for strict gun control measures. 
 
 Lucy Richards, who is accused of sending death threats to a Sandy Hook parent whose son was murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre, wants to plead guilty. Lucy Richards, who is accused of sending death threats to a Sandy Hook parent whose son was murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre, wants to plead guilty. SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 More than 800 news organizations covered the story of his denial. As a result, this professor achieved fame among the morbid and deranged precisely because his theories were attached to his academic credentials and his affiliation with FAU. Tracy has enjoyed tremendous success from this exposure and has since leveraged it into a popular Internet blog and radio program. Worse yet, it has elevated his status and fame among the degenerates that revel in the pleasure of sadistically torturing victims’ families. 
 
 It cannot be denied that Tracy has carved out a significant presence in the same Sandy Hook “hoax” conspiracy movement that has inspired a wave of harassment, intimidation and criminal activity against our family and others. 
 
 In fact, Tracy is among those who have personally sought to cause our family pain and anguish by publicly demonizing our attempts to keep cherished photos of our slain son from falling into the hands of conspiracy theorists. 
 
 Tracy even sent us a certified letter demanding proof that Noah once lived, that we were his parents, and that we were the rightful owner of his photographic image. We found this so outrageous and unsettling that we filed a police report for harassment. Once Tracy realized we would not respond, he subjected us to ridicule and contempt on his blog, boasting to his readers that the “unfulfilled request” was “noteworthy” because we had used copyright claims to “thwart continued research of the Sandy Hook massacre event.” 
 
 His blog post was echoed dozens of times on conspiracy websites, including one maintained by Tracy’s colleague and frequent collaborator James Fetzer, a Holocaust denier who expounded upon Tracy’s article by stating that our refusal to respond to this obscene ultimatum “implies that Noah did not die at Sandy Hook and confirms that Lenny is a fraud.” 
 
 Although FAU issued a “reprimand” to Tracy for the irresponsible and insensitive comments he made in late 2012, he has shown no remorse and continues to conceive conspiracy theories out of each new mass shooting. While Tracy may now limit mention of his association with FAU, it has not gone unnoticed by the press. 
 
 After Tracy spouted yet another ridiculous theory concerning the Washington Navy Yard shooting of 2013, Education Editor Eric Owens of the Daily Caller cited the professor in declaring that “Florida Atlantic University remains and apparently always will be the worst place in America to go to college.” 
 
 When do the interests of the college and its students take precedence over the tenure of a professor who has clearly proven himself in violation of the university’s own policy? The FAU Academic Affairs Faculty Handbook clearly states that “A faculty member's activities which fall outside the scope of employment shall constitute misconduct only if such activities adversely affect the legitimate interests of the University,” 
 
 In an April 2013 Huffington Post article, Heather Coltman, interim dean of the College of Arts and Letters, clearly states that “Tracy's earlier posting has resulted in a number of negative consequences for FAU, including a large number of parents who withdrew their children's applications to FAU, a student whose parent asked that she be withdrawn from his class and a donor who withdrew his support to the Department of History.” 
 
 It matters not if Tracy simply refrains from mentioning FAU when defaming murdered Americans and their families. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that his extracurricular misconduct has already adversely affected FAU’s reputation and will continue doing so as long as he continues down this path. 
 
 It is time FAU reassess if their priorities properly reflect the best interests of their staff, donors and — most importantly — their students. “The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but the Constitution does not guarantee that you can't be fired for expressing your beliefs as part of your job,” says the National Education Association. “The courts could decide either way and the burden of proof shifts sharply to the professor.” 
 
 FAU has a civic responsibility to ensure that it does not contribute to the ongoing persecution of the countless Americans who’ve lost their loved ones to high-profile acts of violence. 
 
 Veronique and Lenny Pozner are the parents of Noah Pozner, one of the 20 children killed in the December 14. 2012, Sandy Hook massacre. Lenny founded the HONR Network, aimed at combating conspiracy theorists on mass shootings. ||||| Photo: Courtesy of Lenny Pozner 
 
 Today marks the anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a tragedy that comes with a number of horrifying superlatives: the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, the third-deadliest shooting of any kind, and the first major American tragedy subjected to the full force of the internet’s conspiratorial machinery in real time. 
 
 Four years on, the genuinely crackpot notion that the attack was a staged hoax — that no one died — has persisted, and the harassment of victims and their families in the name of investigating the idea shows little sign of abating. In the past month, a 57-year-old Florida woman named Lucy Richards was indicted on charges of sending death threats to Lenny Pozner, whose son Noah was killed at Sandy Hook, and a hoaxer who lives in New York City was arrested on similar charges. Pozner, whom I wrote about this past summer, has devoted the last several years of his life to fighting Sandy Hook hoaxers like Richards and Wolfgang Halbig, a Florida man who has relentlessly pestered the town and its families for further proof that their children actually died. Last week, Halbig told me that he had decided to move to Newtown for six months, in order to further his investigation, and later sent an email to me and many others with his travel itinerary. On Facebook, he said he planned to be there for today’s moment of silence honoring the 26 murdered children and adults. Several Newtown residents told me that if Halbig does show up, they have plans for him, too. 
 
 Conspiracy theories, in the age of Trump, have moved from the fringes of our culture to the center of it. The president-elect is not a hardened conspiracy theorist, but appears to be something even more insidious: someone who wields conspiracies to his benefit, discarding them when they no longer serve his purpose but never seeing any need to make a principled stand against misinformation that doesn’t work to his benefit. During the Republican primary, a locally prominent Florida preacher named Carl Gallups, who had repeatedly called Sandy Hook a fabrication, introduced Trump at a rally in Pensacola. The campaign published a press release proudly announcing the endorsement, but when Media Matters and the Trace reported Gallups’s views on Sandy Hook, the campaign, which was leading Florida polls by a wide margin, deemed Gallups’s support expendable and quickly retracted its praise. “The campaign was not aware of this individual’s personal views, which we do not share or support,” Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks said in a statement. And yet Trump has embraced Alex Jones, the conspiracy-mongering founder of InfoWars, of whom Trump declared during an appearance on Jones’s radio show, “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.” Gallups wasn’t worth the trouble, but Jones and his millions of viewers apparently were, and still are. Jones says that Trump called to thank him after the election. 
 
 We have traditionally been able to depend on our leaders to refute and reject conspiratorial thinking, but the president-elect has shown little sign of tempering his embrace of conspiracies when they prove beneficial. Traditional journalism can bring sympathy for the victims among the already sympathetic, but doesn’t seem capable of doing much to counter the fringes of conspiratorial thinking: As soon as my piece was published, it immediately became part of the conspiracy itself, as hoaxers took to the comments section and my email inbox insisting that I was covering up the truth just like the rest of the media. Lenny Pozner began his campaign with patient person-to-person outreach, reasoning with commenters on message boards, answering questions, and converting a number of people who weren’t hardened hoaxers, but that strategy has its obvious limitations. 
 
 Pozner and others have since taken to inflicting real-world consequences on the most egregious hoaxers, mostly online. Pozner has removed hundreds of YouTube videos, blog posts, and even entire websites by patiently filing a variety of complaints, most often copyright requests against sites who use a family photo of his son without his permission. Pozner said that since Trump’s election it seems that the hoaxer movement has been “emboldened.” While Alex Jones largely dropped Sandy Hook after Pozner removed a Sandy Hook–related video from his site last year — among hardened Sandy Hook hoaxers, Jones actually is viewed as a traitor who abandoned the cause — since Trump’s election, Jones has begun talking about it again. Meanwhile, the internet’s gatekeepers continue to respond to the problem haltingly, seemingly uncertain of what exactly they should be doing. “My hatred for Google and YouTube and Facebook has increased 1,000 percent since you and I spoke last,” Pozner told me last week. “They are the ones who cause me all the stress when I try to take the ugliness down.” 
 
 In the face of most criticisms, the tech world has up to now fallen back on an ethos of unrestrained freedom — that people have a right to say and do most anything they please, and that the purpose of technology is here to allow them to do things that they’ve always wanted but haven’t had the means. That seemingly noble goal has allowed Silicon Valley to avoid seriously considering the negative impacts of the otherwise liberating systems they create. There were Columbine conspiracy theorists, too, but in the early days of the internet, there was nowhere for them to gather. Now, there are services cropping up specifically to aid the spread of conspiracy theories: A number of white-supremacist figures have moved from Twitter, which had begun kicking some of them off, to Gab, a service that claims it won’t ban much of anything shy of posting child pornography or threatening terrorism, so users can feel free to promote the Sandy Hook hoax, along with other conspiracies, with impunity and without evidence. Last month, when Pozner finally convinced a hosting service to drop a particular virulent conspiracy-theory site — after filing 20 separate complaints — the site received an offer of help from an outfit called “Tin Foil Web Design,” which identifies as a collective of web designers and marketing strategists “who long ago took the red pill.” (Its owners declined to comment, saying they do not give interviews to “pressistutes.”) 
 
 While Pozner is relieved that the issue is getting more attention, he doesn’t see it getting better in the near term, and believes wholesale changes, perhaps even legal ones, may be necessary. “There are no rules,” Pozner said, of life on the internet. “At some point we’re all gonna have to lose some rights so the internet can be more manageable, or it’s just gonna be a crazy place.” Doing so is complicated — how to distinguish between fake news, conspiracy theories that become defamatory or threatening, and honest Woodwardian and Bernsteinian investigation? — and may not be possible to parse with an algorithm. It turns out that some of humanity’s worst impulses might just need humans to solve them. 
 
 A first step might be to recognize that while the vast majority of people are not delusional enough to show up at a pizzeria with a gun, or visit grieving families on the anniversary of their children’s murder, the problem of truthless speculation has become much wider spread than we’d care to acknowledge. Kim Snyder, who directed the recent documentary Newtown, told me recently that despite generally glowing reviews, two-thirds of the citizen ratings on her film’s IMDb page are one-star reviews, almost all of them accompanied by hoaxer rants. Those people are the extreme, willing to devote actual time and energy to smearing anything and anyone related to Sandy Hook. But Snyder had also met a young graphic designer with a nose ring at a screening in Beaver Creek, Colorado, who sat through 85 minutes of Newtown residents pouring out their grief only to walk up to Snyder afterward and ask if there was any truth to rumors she had heard about the hoax. Snyder had a similar experience at another screening in Martha’s Vineyard. 
 
 Since my story on Pozner came out, I’ve heard this story dozens of times from people who have had an otherwise well-educated and thoughtful friend or family member who has shocked them by admitting that they weren’t sure Sandy Hook happened. “I’ve been saying it from the beginning,” Pozner said. “The hoax thing is like a brush fire. It hasn’t been contained, and we can’t just leave it alone because it will keep burning, and it will eventually show up and it will burn through your town.” When I joined Wolfgang Halbig on one of his investigatory trips to Newtown this summer, I watched as a woman recognized Halbig from across the street, then started walking toward him. I expected an angry confrontation — several Newtown residents had relayed dark fantasies about what they would do if they found themselves in Halbig’s presence — but instead the woman shook Halbig’s hand and thanked him. Later, she told me that she had moved to Newtown after the shooting, with her husband and kids. The woman, who begged me not to disclose her name, now lives less than a minute from the school, and knew people who had lost children, but still wasn’t sure about the whole thing. “I think something happened that is being covered up,” she said. Rather than believe the lived experience of her neighbors’ grief, she was more convinced by stuff she had read on the internet. ||||| CLOSE A Florida woman has been charged with making death threats against the parent of a child who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting massacre because she thought the attack was a hoax. USA TODAY 
 
 In this Jan. 14, 2013 file photo, white roses with the faces of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are attached to a telephone pole near the school on the one-month anniversary of the shooting that left 26 dead in Newtown, Conn. (Photo: Jessica Hill, AP) 
 
 A Florida woman who believes the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting is a hoax was arrested Monday on charges she threatened the parent of a child killed in the 2012 school shooting. 
 
 Lucy Richards, 57, of Tampa, Fla., was indicted on four counts of transmitting threats, according to a statement from the United States Attorney Southern District of Florida. 
 
 The Sandy Hook shooting is approaching its fourth anniversary. On Dec. 14, 2012, 20 children and six school staffers were fatally shot at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. By Adam Lanza, 20. Lanza later fatally shot himself. 
 
 According to authorities, Richards made a series of death threats against Len Pozner, the parent of a child who was killed in the shooting. 
 
 Richards is accused of telling the parent “you gonna die, death is coming to you real soon," according to federal court documents. The statements were made in January. She also wrote, "Look behind you it's death," according to the documents. 
 
 A mugshot of Lucy Richards from a 1997 arrest courtesy of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. She was arrested for petit theft, according to arrest documents. (Photo: Courtesy of CBS4 Miami) 
 
 While it may seem unfathomable to some that Richards believed the shooting was a hoax, she is far from alone. A small movement of “Sandy Hook Truthers” promote conspiracy theories that allege the shooting was staged. 
 
 Pozner addressed Richards' arrest in a statement. 
 
 "We are comforted to know that the system is working to protect the victims of violent crime from re-victimization by potentially violent Hoaxers," Pozner said. 
 
 If convicted of all four counts, Richards could face up to 20 years in prison. She is scheduled to appear in a Fort Lauderdale court on Dec. 19. 
 
 Follow Mary Bowerman on Twitter: @MaryBowerman 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2hiR5qH
– A Florida Atlantic University professor has been making waves for years with his conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre, and now the school is taking action. James Tracy has been claiming on his blog since 2013 that the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting was staged, and FAU has reprimanded him at least once, but ultimately determined he couldn't be fired for expressing his own views on a private blog. But, in the wake of a Sun-Sentinel op-ed by the parents of one Sandy Hook victim—who claim Tracy has been harassing them—FAU gave Tracy a letter Wednesday saying he's been recommended for termination, the Sun-Sentinel reports. Tracy has discussed victim Noah Pozner numerous times on his blog, and the feud apparently has to do with the Pozners filing a copyright infringement claim against him for publishing Noah's image on the blog. In the op-ed, Veronique and Lenny Pozner say that Tracy has "publicly demoniz[ed] our attempts to keep cherished photos of our slain son from falling into the hands of conspiracy theorists" and "sent us a certified letter demanding proof that Noah once lived, that we were his parents, and that we were the rightful owner of his photographic image," after which they filed a police report for harassment. They called on FAU to do something about Tracy. He responded on a "Sandy Hook Hoax" Facebook page, claiming that the Pozners and other "alleged parents" of victims "have made out very well financially, soliciting contributions from generous yet misinformed Americans." He can respond to his termination recommendation within 10 days, "after which final action may be taken," per a university statement. Tracy has also claimed that other attacks, including ones in Paris and San Bernardino, were staged, PIX-11 reports. (Truthers hijacked the online reviews of a book by the mother of another Sandy Hook victim.)