By Ben Jealous
A group of Texas cattle ranchers sued Oprah Winfrey for more than $12 million in 1996. They claimed that one of her shows, called “Dangerous Food,” that featured experts on mad cow disease and in which she said she would not eat another hamburger, was an attack on their business.
The ranchers did not really have a legal leg to stand on. But at the time, Texas did not have an anti-SLAPP law on the books so Winfrey had to fight the frivolous lawsuit in court for six weeks before a jury ruled in her favor.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, known as SLAPP suits for short, are a type of lawsuit intended to silence or punish people who speak out on matters of public interest. They often attack protected free speech and have mostly been used by powerful and wealthy interests to harass. The suits are usually not built to win in court, but rather to leverage the deep pockets of those filing the suits to bully less wealthy groups and individuals and force them to divert their time and resources to defending themselves in court. This is a tactic increasingly used by the fossil fuel industry and other corporate polluters to suffocate environmental activism and advocacy.
Oprah obviously had the resources to fight back in that 1996 suit. Many targets of SLAPP suits are not so lucky.
Right now, Energy Transfer, the corporate behemoth behind the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), is suing the organization Greenpeace for more than $300 million in damages in a SLAPP suit. Energy Transfer alleges Greenpeace orchestrated the massive protest movement against the pipeline, defamed the company, and cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.
In doing so, Energy Transfer fails to acknowledge that the movement to stop this pipeline was led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who simply wanted to protect their water supply, sacred sites, and cultural resources. Tribal leaders attracted the support of hundreds of organizations and thousands of activists, who promoted their efforts, joined the Tribe in North Dakota to protest, and signed letters in solidarity with their opposition to the pipeline.
Energy Transfer’s suit is built on the assumption that Indigenous peoples did not have the authority, agency, or wherewithal to organize the anti-DAPL movement. In that way, the SLAPP suit is a slap in the face to those Indigenous activist leaders.
Greenpeace’s role in the protests was fairly limited. They joined sign-on letters, had a small handful of organizers in North Dakota who joined the effort, and shared information from allies and the news on social media.
That is according to Greenpeace’s Chief Program Officer Tefere Gebre. Tefere and I go back a long way as brothers in the movement for working people. He says, “At the end of the day, it’s not just Greenpeace we worry about. We believe this is going to be a blueprint for corporate America to go after whoever they want and scare their opposition out of existence.”
That is 100% correct. This SLAPP suit is not just about tying up Greenpeace in court to hamper the organization’s work. Energy Transfer and their legal team are trying to sue Greenpeace out of existence, with a ruling that could destroy this important organization. No organization like Greenpeace can afford a $300 million (or more) judgment.
Energy Transfer had their initial lawsuit against Greenpeace thrown out of the federal court where they had first filed it. Just a week later they filed a new suit with similar allegations in North Dakota. North Dakota is one of the few states that does not have an anti-SLAPP law.
Right now, 34 states and the District of Columbia have anti-SLAPP statutes. Greenpeace actually was the target of another baseless SLAPP suit a few years ago by a Canadian logging company. That suit, however, was filed in California – a state with a strong anti-SLAPP law, so even before it was fully thrown out, Greenpeace was able to invoke that law to have certain claims in the suit dismissed.
This suit by Energy Transfer could mark the evolution of SLAPPs from merely a form of harassment to a tool to actually eliminate corporations’ opponents. The rights of tribes, workers, consumers, and other everyday Americans are all at risk. This SLAPP suit against Greenpeace aims to crush people-powered movements before they can get off the ground.
Grassroots organizations should stand unified against Energy Transfer’s tactics and others who may seek to replicate them. And Congress should pass a federal anti-SLAPP law to establish a uniform definition of what a SLAPP suit is across the country. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland introduced such a bill in the last Congress.
A crucial first step, though, is raising awareness. As Tefere Gebre points out, “The public understands that if corporations get to buy their own law it’s the same as getting to buy their own elected officials… then what is left of our democracy?”
Gebre says, “We don’t want people to just say ‘poor Greenpeace,’ we want people to speak up and actually stop this from happening. We’re not asking for sympathy, we’re asking for solidarity.”
Hear, hear. We should all stand in solidarity against abusive SLAPP suits aimed at shutting down the people-powered movements for freedom and justice that have always held our nation accountable to its ideals and helped reshape society for the better.
Ben Jealous is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club and a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
