A man who says he was offended by the ability of a CD-ROM encyclopedia to find racial slurs in its own text has sued the encyclopedia's publisher in Federal District Court in Los Angeles for $40 million.
The plaintiff, Thomas D. Wallace of Omaha, says he and his sons suffered emotional distress after finding the word "nigger" in the Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, published by Compton's Newmedia of Carlsbad, Calif. The suit also names Compton's owner, the Tribune Company of Chicago, and Best Buy, the store that sold Mr. Wallace the software.
Mr. Wallace, who is black, said he discovered the slur when he inadvertently typed "nigger" while searching for references to the Niger River. In response, the computer found references under "Drama," "Martin Luther King Jr.," "Black Americans or African Americans" and "English Literature."
A Tribune spokesman, Robert Carr, said the word appeared in Compton's Interactive encyclopedia in these contexts:
*An article citing "The Nigger of the Narcissus," the novel by Joseph Conrad.
*The titles of two plays: "The Nigger" by Edward Sheldon and "The Electronic Nigger" by Ed Bullins.
*The title of a book by the comedian Dick Gregory titled "Up From Nigger."
*A passage from the biography of Dr. King, recalling an incident when he was 11 and a white woman struck him and called him "nigger."
*An article about Carl Van Vechten, who established the Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters, now at Yale University. One of Mr. Van Vechten's essays is titled "Nigger Heaven."
"The complaint is without merit," said another Tribune spokesman, Joseph A. Hays, adding, "It's just plain silly."
