who work to advance the rights of survivors2 of sex harassment and other gender-based violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence. [...] Retaliatory defamation lawsuits against survivors of sex harassment and other gender-based violence have increased at alarming rates in the past decade, especially after #MeToo went viral in fall 2017 and inspired waves of survivors to come forward for the first time.3 In December 2017, a lawyer for the Victim Rights Law 3 In response to an outpouring of requests from survivors who were targeted b. [...] In 2021, a study found that twenty-three percent of surveyed student survivors were threatened with a defamation suit by an abuser, and nineteen percent were warned by their school of the possibility of a defamation suit. [...] These suits are meritless, but the financial and practical costs of defending against them are used to suppress the survivor-defendant’s ability to publicly speak out about harassment or to seek help from their school, employer, and other institutions, including the civil and criminal legal systems. [...] This alarming trend has captured the attention of state lawmakers across the country, who have introduced and passed a number of laws in the last few years to explicitly protect survivors from being targeted by defamation and other abusive lawsuits.
- Pages
- 42
- Published in
- United States of America
