The legal team for activist Scarlett Johnson is defending their client’s first amendment rights after Johnson described a school employee as “woke” online, resulting in a defamation lawsuit filed by the school district where Johnson’s children are students.
Johnson was sued for defamation after levying online criticism at a former “social justice coordinator” employed by her children’s school district.
In late May, the case was accepted by an appellate court which will determine whether it should have been allowed to be brought in the first place.
“Nobody should have to have to deal with a defamation lawsuit just for using the word ‘woke.’ That’s crazy,” Luke Berg, Deputy Counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, told The Sconi.
Berg outlined the sequence of events that led to the defamation lawsuit, explaining that Johnson’s critique of her school district’s decision to hire a “social justice coordinator” prompted legal action.
“Scarlett Johnson is a mom and activist, political activist, and has a pretty well-known presence on social media and regularly posts about things that are happening in school districts,” Berg said.
Berg criticized the trial court’s decision to deny motions to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Johnson’s statements, while critical, should not have been grounds for a defamation trial.
“I think the decision was pretty clearly wrong,” he said. “So a well-established defamation law is, in order to be defamatory, a statement has to be false and provably false.”
He highlighted the ambiguity of terms like “woke” and “bully,” asserting that such subjective labels do not meet the criteria for defamation.
“This is incredibly important if you can get sued for defamation, for calling someone well or a ‘bully,” Berg said. “We would all be litigating defamation lawsuits left and right. This is pretty common language thrown about in social media discourse. People call each other names all the time. So it should be a huge concern, if this is allowed to proceed, for what that would do to the public discourse.”
The lawsuit has ignited debates about the limits of free speech in the digital realm, with Johnson underscoreing the importance of free speech as the foundation for free thought and a healthy society.
In a post on X by WILL, Johnson said she feels targeted for her social media posts. WILL emphasized that they are “defending her First Amendment Rights because free speech is a RIGHT for all Americans!”
“I’m on trial for speaking my mind,” Johnson said. “I’m on trial because I have a belief that others do not feel comfortable with, or they don’t like.”
She blames a public education system fixated on identity politics and indoctrination.
Johnson criticized a top-down approach with expensive administrators dictating what teachers say and students think.
WILL contends that the lawsuit is futile and that Johnson should not be subjected to an expensive trial merely for expressing her opinions.
