Civil Rights Groups Rally Around Kesha in Battle With Dr. Luke
After last week's legal setback, women's rights organizations are again stepping up to defend the singer.
Celebrities

Kesha just got some good news amid the ongoing defamation trial leveled against her by former collaborator Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald a.k.a Dr. Luke. A group of women’s civil rights groups have filed a friend of the court brief in support of the singer/songwriter to bolster her long-slogging legal fight. Legal Momentum, Equal Rights Advocates and the National Women’s Law Center filed the brief in New York State Supreme Court on Friday, arguing that Gottwald’s suit against the singer amounts to continued harassment of a sexual assault victim.
These groups positioned Kesha’s fight as a typical experience of sexual assault survivors who decide to publicly name their abusers. These groups—which include the first and longest-serving national nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to vindicating women and girls’ rights—detail how legal action is used to harass and intimidate victims of all income levels. Though Kesha is a well-known artist and celebrity, her continued legal battle continues to cost her hundreds of thousands. Using the court to continue the cycle of abuse legitimizes the harm she experienced and puts her, the victim, in the position of needing to rehash their abuse over and over again in an attempt to move past the incident.
“When the abusers have money to hire lawyers, that retaliation often comes in the form of turning the law that is supposed to protect survivors into the instrument to torment and threaten. Retaliatory litigation by abusers has grown drastically, motivating the legislature to amend the Anti-SLAPP law,” the brief reads. “Sexual assault is already drastically underreported, as survivors fear disbelief or punishment for speaking up—an often-founded result.”