Do Lawsuits Silence? Legal Harassment in Corporate Crime Research

Researchers in the social sciences are often the bearers of unwelcome messages. In some cases, the publication of unwanted outcomes of social research may be subjected to censure. For researchers investigating “crimes of the powerful”. it comes as no surprise that the powerful use their power to force them to adjust or withhold such unwanted results. In the multidisciplinary field of research on corporate crime efforts to silence researchers can be especially formidable. This happens, for example, when researchers are threatened by multinational business corporations with law suits for libel or defamation. As a criminologist working in this field, the author describes being threatened by a multinational with a lawsuit clearly designed to prohibit publication of his research on a specific corporation’s complicity in crimes against humanity. Triggered by his own experience, he explores accounts of other researchers about their experiences with legal harassment. He explores what they do when they fear being threatened with a lawsuit as well as the repercussions of their choices and how this influences their future research. After taking a look at three classic examples of the legal harassment of researchers on corporate crime, he analyzes the case in which he was threatened with a lawsuit for defamation. This is followed by the results of an informal survey of other researchers who had had experiences with legal harassment and been negatively affected in their ability to get their research published. The chapter concludes with a discussion of silencing and the issue of academic freedom.