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The past offers no legal protections for history writers
I sometimes joke that I like writing about history because dead people can’t sue for defamation and libel. But apparently, as public historian Jalane Schmidt discovered in 2019, writing about the past is no shield against such lawsuits, however meritless and trivial they may be.
In an article critical of Confederate monuments published in the C-Ville Weekly of Charlottesville, Virginia, reporter Lisa Provence quoted Schmidt and featured her research pointing to the slaveholding and slave-trading history of the family of monuments-supporter Edward Dickinson Tayloe II. Tayloe then sued Schmidt for defamation. “First Amendment protections should not be stifled by lawsuits designed to make anyone fearful of the consequences of exercising their rights,” wrote Schmidt, who received support from the ACLU of Virginia and was convinced the lawsuit against her was without merit.
A judge agreed and dismissed that lawsuit on October 28, 2019.
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