By: Alyssa Leader <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write \u2018Me\nToo,\u2019 as a reply to this tweet<\/a>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n In October 2017, these words, shared by Alyssa Milano to her\npersonal Twitter page, became the tweet heard \u2018round the world. Weeks before,\nmovie mogul Harvey Weinsten<\/a>\nhad been exposed as a serial sexual abuser of women in the entertainment\nindustry. Milano\u2019s tweet, referencing a movement started by activist Tarana\nBurke<\/a> encouraging women to speak up about sexual violence, seized on\nthe spark of outrage in response to Weinstein\u2019s actions and fanned it into a\nforest fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What began as a viral tweet (shared\n25,000 times<\/a>) quickly developed into a social movement. Women\nreferenced \u201cMe too<\/a>,\u201d\nas they spoke up about sexual violence they experienced in a variety of\ncontexts and industries. Men including comedian Louis\nC.K.,<\/a> actor Kevin\nSpacey<\/a>, news anchor Matt\nLauer<\/a>, and former Ninth Circuit judge Alex Kozinski<\/a> were outed as\nabusers as their victims dragged their behavior into the light. Time Magazine honored<\/a>\nwomen who had spoken up as part of the Me Too movement as Person of the Year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the unprecedented movement has not been without\nunintended consequences for those who have spoken up. While the social\nconsequences<\/a> have been heavily discussed, the legal\nconsequences<\/a> have received less attention. Me Too survivors who\nspeak up about abuse they experienced face defamation lawsuits (or threats of\nthese suits) by those they have implicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defamation suits can be a powerful and important tool for\nindividuals whose reputations are unfairly damaged by false statements.\nHowever, they become a problem when they are used with the intention of\nsilencing speech that is not defamatory. A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public\nParticipation (\u201cSLAPP\u201d)<\/a> is a suit filed\nwith the intention of silencing legitimate speech by intimidating the speaker\nand creating a financial and emotional nuisance. SLAPPs don\u2019t just impact\nthose named as defendants; they create\nan environment where speech generally seems more risky. The impact of SLAPP\nsuits is that they chill speech and choke public discourse about an important\nproblem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bringing conversations about sexual violence into the light\nmeans considering urgent First Amendment questions we may not have considered\nbefore. Among the most important of these questions is what speech protections survivors\nof sexual violence have when they choose to speak up about their experiences.\nThe answer is the unsatisfying but often used legal trope\u2014it depends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many have cited anti-SLAPP laws as survivors\u2019 biggest\npotential protection. Anti-SLAPP<\/a>\nlaws protect those named as defendants in SLAPP suits by providing a special\nopportunity for SLAPP defendants to dismiss the claim early in litigation.\nUsually, defendants who win an anti-SLAPP motion proceed under a shifted burden\nrequiring the plaintiff to prove that their claim has merit. Often, defendants\nhave an opportunity to collect costs and fees after a successful anti-SLAPP\nmotion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, anti-SLAPP protections are somewhat\npiecemeal<\/a>. There is no federal anti-SLAPP law. Only\n31 states and D.C<\/a>. currently have anti-SLAPP statutes. Of the\nstatutes that do exist, the protections provided vary widely. Many statutes\nonly protect those who speak out on an issue that is formally under consideration\nby the government; others only protect those who are speaking on the record\nbefore a government body. Statutes with these restrictions do very little to\nprotect survivors who speak out in the context of Me Too and are often speaking\nup for the first time in their communities and social circles about issues\nwhich are not under government review. Speech about sexual violence doesn\u2019t appear to be slowing\ndown any time soon. In fact, survivors are determined to speak out now more\nthan ever. Moving forward, the law should better protect those who choose to\nengage in this conversation. One way to provide these protections is to ensure\nthat all jurisdictions have anti-SLAPP protection and that all existing\nprotections protect speech regardless of topic or forum. Furthermore, given the\ninterest the public has expressed about issues regarding sexual violence, all\nissues of sexual violence should be assumed to be of public concern. This would\nensure that this speech which is clearly valued is protected and survivors\ncould continue to engage in this important conversation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Check out staff member, Alyssa Leader’s blog post on the Me Too movement!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[98,222,312],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/firstamendmentlawreview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nOnly thirteen<\/a>\njurisdictions have anti-SLAPP laws which don\u2019t restrict protections based on\nthe forum or petitioning status of speech. Even these statutes offer only\nlimited protections to victims who choose to speak up. In order to come under\nthe protection of the law, survivors must prove that their speech is of public\ninterest. Generally, this is a given when the allegations concern someone who\nis a public figure, as has often been the case when survivors have spoken in\nthe context of Me Too. However, survivors may struggle to prove that their\nallegations against people who are not public figures are of public interest.\nIf they are unable to do so, an anti-SLAPP statute may offer no help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n