Aggrieved Infant-Video Entrepreneur Demands Access to UW Research That Dumped on His Product

He owes it all to the DVD's. Or does he?

​It can't be good for business when a product you've been marketing to high-achieving, guilt-ridden parents is suddenly tagged by university researchers as possibly harmful to infants.

And indeed, when two University of Washington scientists released a study in 2007 suggesting that infant-aimed DVD's, like those from a company called Baby Einstein, might actually impede your little bundle of joy's intellectual development, the company--then a division of Walt Disney--grudgingly offered mass refunds.

But the founders of Baby Einstein aren't letting the matter rest.

William Clark, who co-founded Baby Einstein with his wife, Julie Aigner Clark, has been in a years-long struggle to get the UW to hand over details of its research. He wants to see the raw data and "interpretive methods" used in the the 2007 study--which received a ton of press--and same for another UW study from 2004, which found that watching TV may mess up kids' attention spans. (Really?)

Frustrated with the UW's response so far, Clark has now filed suit against the university, hoping a King County Superior Court Judge will enforce better access under the state Public Records Act.

Says Clark in an email to SW: "The findings [in the study] absolutely do not support later comments the researchers have made. For more than two-and-a-half years, the University has repeatedly refused to release any useful information about research that two of their scientists later used and publicized. One of the reasons we want to see the data is that we do not believe the scientists' public remarks are substantiated by their own study."

Aigner Clark: celebrated by Bush.

​Clark isn't motivated by money, he says, since he and his wife no longer have a stake in Baby Einstein sales (such as they are). Vindication is what they're after.

Clark's lawsuit complains that the negative publicity generated by the UW "has focused personally on Ms.Clark, vilifying her for the products she created." (Exhibits include this Slate article.) The lawsuit also notes that Clark has breast cancer, "so matters of legacy weigh heavily with her."

Prior to the outbreak of bad news, Ms. Clark's best-known legacy was having sat next to Laura Bush during the 2007 State of the Union address, where she received a shout-out from the President for representing "the great enterprising spirit of America." Her husband is carrying on that spirit, of course, because there's arguably nothing more enterprising and American than a public records lawsuit.

Asked for comment on the suit, a spokesperson for the UW told the Weekly, "We just got served with it today. Our lawyers haven't even had a chance really to take a look at it and we have not had a chance to discuss it with them."