Appeals Court Greenlights Ex-Artforum Employee Amanda Schmitt’s Lawsuit Against the Magazine—But Lets Knight Landesman Off the Hook

Former Artforum employee Amanda Schmitt has
found partial success in an appeal filed against the magazine in a
closely watched case that amounts to the first public legal action
related to the #MeToo movement in the art world.

A New York appeals court has reversed a lower court’s
dismissal of two of Schmitt’s four claims against
Artforum. She may now proceed with her lawsuit alleging
that the magazine retaliated against her after she reported its
former co-publisher, Knight Landesman, for sexual harassment, and
that its publishers failed to make good on their promise to protect
her from his unwanted advances. The court dismissed all claims
against Landesman personally.

Schmitt, who was an intern and later a circulation assistant at
the prominent art magazine beginning in 2009, was among the first
of nearly two dozen women
to come forward with sexual-harassment accusations against
Landesman. She says that when she brought her concerns to the
magazine’s three other co-publishers, they promised protection
but instead retaliated against her by making disparaging statements
about her in the press and to
Artforum staff, and by excluding her from industry
events it hosted.

After Schmitt’s allegations became public in 2017, the three
publishers told Artnet News that
her claims were “unfounded” and characterized them as “an attempt
to exploit a relationship that [she] herself worked hard to create
and maintain.”

The judges didn’t look kindly on this in their decision, which
was issued yesterday. “Artforum’s verbal and written
disparagement of plaintiff, especially after she explained her
plight and displayed Landesman’s emails, combined with allegations
that Artforum sought to effectively freeze her out of the
close-knit business and professional trade in which she was
engaged, adequately set forth retaliation claims under the New York
City Human Rights Law,” they wrote.

The judges maintained, however, that Schmitt did not provide
“adequate grounds” to proceed with her defamation and negligence
claims against the magazine—nor any of her claims against
Landesman. They dismissed her argument that he had defamed her when
he confronted her and her friends in a New York City restaurant
and “threaten[ed] to discuss the ‘details’ of what she’d said
about him,” arguing that whatever the implication of Landesman’s
statement, it did not amount to threats “in any explicit
sense.”

(Because the five-year statute of limitations to bring a sexual
harassment lawsuit had run out by the time Schmitt filed her claims
in 2017, her suit instead focused on allegations of slander,
retaliation, and defamation that she says took place once she spoke
out about the alleged mistreatment.)

The appeals court’s decision holds “the magazine accountable for
its efforts to undermine her professionally after she raised the
alarm about Landesman’s years of abuse,” Schmitt’s attorney Emily
Reisbaum told Artnet News in an email. “There is now no doubt, as
Schmitt has been saying all along, that Artforum not only
permitted Landesman’s abuse to pervade its workplace and
prestigious events, but it also punished Schmitt—not Landesman—for
speaking the truth about his perversity. We hope this reversal
will, finally, force Artforum to take responsibility for
the harm it has caused to so many women.”

Attorneys for Landesman and Artforum declined to
comment.

Landesman resigned from Artforum in Ocober 2017, the
day after allegations about his conduct were published on Artnet
News and after Schmitt first filed her lawsuit. He remains a
partial owner of the magazine with the three remaining
co-publishers.

After Landesman’s resignation, Artforum’s publishers
said they spoke with employees further and now agreed that he had
“engaged in unacceptable behavior and caused a hostile work
environment.” They said they would create a task force of women at
the magazine to address its workplace environment.

The post Appeals Court Greenlights Ex-Artforum Employee
Amanda Schmitt’s Lawsuit Against the Magazine—But Lets Knight
Landesman Off the Hook appeared first on artnet
News.