WILL:
Additional Background: The initial lawsuit involved a defamation claim for run-of-the-mill social media posts on X and Facebook. The posts in question criticized a school district for having a “social justice coordinator,” and described people who hold such positions as “woke,” “white savior[s]” with a “god complex,” “woke lunatics,” and “bullies.” Statements like these are pervasive on social media; indeed, they were more restrained than a lot of online speech. Nevertheless, the Plaintiff, who previously held the position, chose to respond with a defamation lawsuit, and the trial court allowed the claims to go to trial.
WILL stepped in to file an early appeal to avoid a costly and non-sensical defamation trial for First Amendment protected speech. We argued, and the Court agreed, that for statements to be actionable for defamation, they must be “provably false.” See Milkovich v. Lorain J. Co., 497 U.S. 1, 20 (1990). That is, a comment must directly state or clearly imply an objective, binary truth claim that listeners would reasonably understand to be either true or false. As courts have recognized, firm adherence to this principle is critical to protecting free speech.
Courts have regularly held that nebulous concepts like “woke” and “bully” that are routinely and indiscriminately thrown about in public discourse are not actionable precisely because their meaning depends on one’s opinion and viewpoint. As the court noted in this case, “Johnson’s statements cannot be proven true or false.”