Law Commons^™

Protecting Women's Voices: Preventing Retaliatory Defamation Claims In The #Metoo Context, Nicole Ligon

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

As part of a personal commitment to positively utilize my legal skills, I joined the Legal Network for Gender Equity, a group of attorneys who support individuals seeking to come forward about their experiences with sexual harassment and assault. Through this network, I regularly counsel women who want to share their stories but are concerned that by doing so, they may open themselves up to costly defamation suits from their aggressors. Their concerns are not so much rooted in any notion that their stories are or could actually be defamatory. Instead, these concerns often stem from a recognition that …

Censoring Hate In The Music Industry: Shifting Perspectives In Pursuit Of Cultural Equity, Joey A. Tan

Backstage Pass

Music is intended to be expressive and unconstrained, a tool of communicating emotion and bridging humanity. As such, censorship is widely despised among music creators, listeners, publishers, distributors, and other music industry stakeholders. “Freedom of expression,” however, proves to be an applicable argument for both sides of the matter when the censorship concerns hate directed at marginalized communities. Analyzing the concept of censorship through the lens of those with privilege and power fails to recognize the extent to which hate speech impacts its victims and the indirect recipients of the message. As a powerful influencer of popular and youth cultures, …

Group Defamation, Power, And A New Test For Determining Plaintiff Eligibility, Jeffrey Greenwood

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

In the fall of 2014, Rolling Stone Magazine published an article describing the rape of a woman at a University of Virginia fraternity house. The story turned out to be false, and members of the fraternity sued for defamation. The suit raises an interesting question: under what circumstances may anonymous individual members of the fraternity recover? This Note describes the case, related common and constitutional law, as well as differences in group defamation doctrine across jurisdictions. After detailing problems with the existing paradigm, the Note proposes a new method for performing the analysis.