Slandering an educational institution

A few days ago, I was on a balcony of my apartment and I overheard my neighbor talking with her sister. This sister works in a well-known educational institution in Jerusalem. This is the type of place that was founded many years ago by a truly holy person, but now it’s run by his children and grandchildren. Anyway, this sister told to my neighbor that she somehow discovered that for several years now this institution hasn’t been paying her salary in full. It’s not clear whether this was done on purpose, or whether this was a result of an oversight. When she discovered this, she went straight to the principal of the seminary and demanded that she be paid whatever is owed her for these years. You’d think that the principal would apologize! No, the management of this institution tried to deny this, then they tried every possible way to wriggle their way out of paying her. This story has been going on for a while, and they still haven’t paid her a cent, even though in the end they admitted that they do owe her the money. It came to light, that, apparently, similar cases already happened at this institution, and at least some of the workers who were fleeced of their money were never compensated.  (By the way, my husband is not Israeli. When he heard about this, he was veritably horrified. He said that in other countries even the lowest of the low are embarrassed to behave in such a fashion. He said that it’s a mitzva to publicize this, and also, that we should convince my neighbor’s sister to look for another place of employment.) Anyway, my question is this. After hearing this story, I told it to several of my girlfriends. I also published it in a certain forum. I thought that there is great benefit in letting people know about this, so they won’t send their children to learn in this place. But now I’m thinking that maybe this wasn’t right. Maybe this is considered slander and even desecration of G-d’s name. What should I do now?  

Dear …

There isn’t a shadow of a doubt that you transgressed the prohibition of slandering severely. There are several reasons for that:

1. You didn’t hear this story from the victim directly. You only heard fragments of sentences, whatever one could hear from a balcony.
2. Even if you did hear all the details correctly, you only heard one side of this story. You didn’t try to find out what the seminary management has to say about this.
3. You publicized the story so that people won’t send their children to learn in this institution. This is causing damage that has nothing to do with the story that happened. For even if we do presume that the whole account is correct, it would be proper to tell someone not to go to work there. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the level of instruction and education there. Whoever learns there isn’t in any way affected by the way workers’ salaries are paid. They are affected by the content of the courses that are taught there.
4. The law is that even if you do know clearly that a wrong was done to someone, you are not allowed to tell others about it util you confront the offending party and reproach it for what it has done. If it still persists in its offence and refuses to correct the wrong, only then can you publicize the offence.

What follows from all this is that you have to contact all those who heard the story from you and to explain to them that what you told them isn’t something that you really know about, rather, it’s something that you conjectured based on your own inferences. Tell them that they shouldn’t rely on what you told them. In other words, you should try to set this right as much as possible.

Good luck!

Chofetz Chaim, section “Slander”