Over the past eight months, institutions have fallen in line with Trump 2.0. From business to higher education, organizations fearful of retribution have stripped their DEI programs, agreed to multimillion-dollar settlements, and otherwise tried to keep the president happy.
So it feels even more remarkable when something—or someone—stands firm where they did before Trump’s return to office. The strongest example is turning out to be E. Jean Carroll, the writer who won $83 million in a defamation suit against Trump. Carroll has said that Trump raped her (he was found liable for sexual abuse but not for rape, and has denied the charge), and won after he was found to have defamed her character in response to that allegation.
Yesterday, an appeals court upheld that $83 million award. It also determined that the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity did not prevent Trump from being found liable here. The result is an outlier when, otherwise, courts seem to be bending to Trump’s will. Yesterday, the Supreme Court both allowed Trump to fire an FTC commissioner who he has said didn’t sufficiently support his administration’s priorities and permitted his administration to detain people it suspects of being undocumented based on factors including their race, speaking Spanish, or working a low-wage job.
Even though Trump returned to the most powerful seat in the world, Carroll has never wavered on her experience or her willingness to take on the president. Just a few months ago, she published her book Not My Type (Trump had accused her of raising her allegation to try to sell a book). She has a documentary that just screened at a festival, and has said she hopes that it “finishes off” Trump and that buyers don’t fear the wrath of the president.
Carroll has credited her willingness to take on Trump to her age. At 81, she has said she doesn’t fear Trump’s retribution. She hasn’t received a dollar of that $83 million yet, and Trump will certainly keep fighting it. Her attorney, Robbie Kaplan, said, “We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done.” When I interviewed Kaplan and Carroll together at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in May 2024, Carroll compared the insults Trump lobbed at her to the experience of any woman. “We all get, ‘You’re ugly, you’re old, you’re shriveled. You don’t deserve this. You’re pathetic. You’re hideous. You don’t deserve to go on.’ We all are getting it. I am not unusual. Every woman in this room knows exactly what I’m talking about,” she said then.
Meanwhile, Trump hasn’t changed. Yesterday, he said when attempting to tout a reduction in crime that domestic violence—a man’s “little fight with the wife”—shouldn’t count toward crime statistics.
But as Carroll’s cases continue to wind through the legal system, this outcome is a reminder: Bending to Trump’s will is not the only way. Institutions might feel they have more to lose or more responsibility to their stakeholders than one woman does—but they still have choices.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.
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ON MY RADAR
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She started the debate about kids and phones. Now she wants to end it New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"Teenage girls are so monitored and observed and objectified and are expected to be a certain thing. So just having the opportunity to let go of that, and be, like, ugly and loud—it opens something up."
—Playwright Kimberly Belflower on the screaming in her play, John Proctor Is the Villain
