Environmental Advocacy and Defamation in the SLAPP Era

As part of the 2026 Hot Topics in Environmental Law lecture series, Professor Jared Carter JD’09, Vermont Law and Graduate School, and Heather Murray, Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic, discuss how defamation and related claims, often constituting Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP), have recently been used as a sword to attempt to silence environmental advocacy organizations and journalists, and the potential defenses provided by state anti-SLAPP laws.