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On Wednesday, just shy of a year after he says the "Shitty Media Men" list started making the rounds online, the writer Stephen Elliott – who was listed by several women for alleged "rape accusations and sexual harassment" – has filed a defamation suit against its creator, the journalist Moira Donegan, asking for $ 1.5m in damages.
Claiming their actions were "malicious in nature", Elliott also included in his list of 30 "Jane Does" – the current anonymous women who contributed to the list last year. He intends to identify them.
According to his complaint, filed in a New York short district, Elliott and his lawyer plan to subpoena Google metadata to obtain the identities of those who contributed to the list, uncovering their "names, email addresses, pseudonyms and / or 'Internet handles' ".
Created in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein allegations and then burgeoning #MeToo movement, the list was intended to serve as a way for women in the media to warn one another about potential aggressors in their workplaces. Anonymous spreadsellers added names and allegations, and the crowdsourced Google spreadsheet quickly filled with reports of harassment, abuse, and other misconduct – all of them have to be taken with a "grain of salt", according to the directions of the document.
The list of articles was published, Donegan came forward as its creator.
"In the beginning, I only wanted to create a place for women to share their stories of harassment and assault without being needlessly discredited or judged," she wrote in an essay published by New York Magazine's The Cut. "The hope is to create an alternate avenue to report this kind of behavior and warn others without fear of retaliation."
Elliott, who vehemently denies the allegations that have been listed under his name, and that it has been destroyed. His essay on the heels of a personal essay, published in September, called How An Anonymous Accusation Derailed My Life, in which he describes his sexual preferences and how difficult his life is.
Responses to the essay were swift, and included in a tweet thread in which one of his fellow trainers, Lyz Lenz, a writer for the Columbia Journalism Review and an array of other publications, detailed the ways in which she said he had harassed her.
"Since your name is on the list I have gotten so many emails from women talking about the harassment you put them through. I'm talking so they do not have to, "she wrote.
Elliott has aligned himself with the attorney Andrew Miltenberg, a lawyer who specializes in fighting sexual assault claims and who has raised concerns over Title IX protections. Miltenberg made a name for himself in the assault of sexual assault, challenging what he has told reporters is a system that is unfair to men.
Donegan could not be reached for how. On Twitter, she posted A link to the essay she wrote last year, saying: "I opened the spreadsheet a year ago today, and I wrote this essay, the hardest thing I've ever written, a few months later. I still stand by it. "
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