Ludlow’s Defamation Lawsuit Dismissed
Peter Ludlow’s defamation lawsuit against Sun-Times Media, Cumulus Broadcasting, and Fox Television Stations, Inc., for describing the sexual assault he has been accused of as “rape,” was dismissed. Details here. (via Feminist Philosophers)
Dateline Chicago. Brian Leiter is an “elite academic” at an “elite law school,” according to a judge’s dismissal of Peter Ludlow’s defamation lawsuit concerning media accounts of Ludlow’s alleged sexual interaction with one of his students.
Regardless of the merits of the Ludlow libel case, Leiter’s comment seems to suggest that he thinks *New York Times v. Sullivan* was wrongly decided. That’s, at least, a somewhat surprising position for a blogger …
I don’t think that is what he means. Instead, he seems to think that the Sullivan case itself (which merely concerned “public officials”) was correctly decided, whereas the subsequent developments such as in Curtis v. Butts, Gertz v. Welch, Hustler v. Falwell, etc. (which gradually extended the Sullivan standard to more and more broadly defined “public figures”) were wrong-headed.
Fair enough. On rereading it, it occurred to me that my claim may have been too strong.
Leiter’s explanation of the relevant parts of the criminal law and his criticism of others’ analysis of these issues are both exactly right. His assessment of the defamation issue also seems correct but I am not an expert on that issue.