They Tried to Take My Words. I Fought to Get Them Back.
Having her writing weaponized against her in court initially chastened Iris (Yi Youn) Kim, but later galvanized her to keep telling her story—and those of others like her.
This essay is the first in a collaborative series between Memoir Land and Literary Liberation, Sherisa De Groot's excellent publication, featuring stories about writing as a transformative and liberatory practice. It is part of Literary Liberation's "Freedom Ways" series of essays and interviews. In Sherisa's words: "We seek to illuminate the ways in which writing can be a powerful tool for personal and collective liberation, challenging oppressive structures and creating new possibilities for understanding, resistance, and healing." New essays will appear in both publications every other month. Learn more about this series and how to submit your writing for consideration.
Iris (Yi Youn) Kim is a solutions-journalism reporter for NBC News based in L.A. Previously, she produced fiction podcasts at Wondery and international TV shows at HBO Max.
She is a 2022 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, a 2022 Center for Public Diplomacy U.S.-South Korea NextGen Creative Fellow, and a 2023 inaugural Gold House Journalism Fellow. She has written for NBC Asian America, Harper’s Bazaar, Salon, Electric Literature, Slate and TIME covering Asian American politics, identity and culture.
Iris is currently working on a memoir about searching for justice after a lawsuit against her abuser and alma mater. She publishes the newsletter here on Substack.
"It's not for us to feel shame. It's for them."
-Gisele Pelicot
At my first deposition during my lawsuit against my abuser and alma mater, the school’s outside counsel, C, flipped open a black binder to reveal a stack of papers.
We were an hour into the full-day deposition at C’s Orange County office. Seven of us sat around a long conference table like we were in a standoff—my two lawyers and I on one side, and C and her associate across from us. The court reporter sat to my left at the head of the table, not making eye contact with anyone. For the first hour, C’s questions for me had been basic and perfunctory. When did you start your freshman year? What resources did the school give you on sexual harassment? But now, she reached for a packet with a familiar design across the top and slid it across the conference table.
“Exhibit 526,” she announced to the court reporter, who glanced at the stapled sheets and kept typing away. C’s steely blue eyes softened in performed empathy. “Is this an article you wrote in August of 2016 for your school paper?”
“Objection,” my lawyers interjected. “We haven’t verified these exhibits yet.”
“These are from the plaintiff’s own website,” C rebutted. “I’ll ask you again, Ms. Kim. Did you write this article, titled AI, Technology, and Sexism, in August 2016?”
I ran my finger carefully over each black, Georgia-font word of the printout. I had, in fact, authored every word of the article, but the lawyers’ verbal sparring was putting me on edge. I murmured a barely-audible, timid “yes.” The associate next to C handed her a few more exhibits in succession, which C then placed in front of me.
When I first filed a lawsuit against my abuser and my alma mater, I had no idea that every word I had ever written would be offered up for public consumption.
They were all PDFs of articles I had written my sophomore year. Their topics ranged from the exclusion of women at the UN Climate Conference, to the lack of women writers on my high school reading list, and Trump freezing aid to NGOs offering abortion services.
I realized, instinctively, what my alma mater’s lawyers were trying to do: line up their punches with each article and back me into a corner of the legal ring. “It says here that you wrote this for a feminist column,” C said as she raised an eyebrow.
Panic ballooned in my chest. “Yes, I did.”
“Do you identify as a feminist?”
“Yes, I do.”
“What does feminism mean to you?”
C’s perfectly-timed question finally landed like a blow square to the face. “To me it means…that women deserve the same rights as men.”
The shock opened a spigot for my tears. C sat back smugly in her office chair.
Hot streams of humiliation ran down my cheeks as I cursed C and the school in my head. How dare they weaponize my college writing against me? What did my feminist rage in those columns have to do with how I’d spoken out about the abuse? How could they so shamelessly employ such a blatant victim-blaming tactic in 2022?
My lawyers patted me on the back. “Our client needs to take a break,” they announced. They glared at the attorneys opposite us, and led me into the copy room next door.
We huddled around a round wooden table, while my lawyers comforted me in soothing tones and kept a tissue box outstretched in their arms. My face burned with the shame of my defeat—I had blown my strong, steely facade only an hour into the deposition. I wiped away my snot and tears with Kleenex after Kleenex until the box ran dry.
***
When I first filed a lawsuit against my abuser and my alma mater, I had no idea that every word I had ever written would be offered up for public consumption.
It was during “discovery,” a process during which each party’s lawyers can demand to view relevant documents, that my most intimate thoughts were unearthed. My lawyers and I scoured through my phone, laptop, and notebooks for keywords like the name of the abuser and the name of my school.
On my devices, I screenshotted hundreds of texts and emails where I mentioned either of them. I exported old Tumblr posts, where I’d written “MeToo,” in 2018. I snapped pictures of journal entries, compiling the images into a single Word doc for my lawyers.
I turned over all the relevant writing I could find. What we had by the end was a paper trail — even though I hadn’t told anyone about the abuse during college, my writing did not lie. My words, like a distant distress signal visible through the fog, captured my increasing agitation during the period of continued assault. They revealed a young woman navigating two worlds — one of outward self-assuredness and campus involvement, and the other of inner turmoil and mounting shame.
That wasn’t the last time that I had to surrender my writing to the legal system. Every six months or so, my lawyers and I updated our records with new words to report and sent them off to C and her law firm. Along with this surveillance was a looming threat: anyone who received information about the case could be dragged into the lawsuit by the opposing lawyers.
“Remember, be very careful what you say to your boyfriend, friends, and family,” my lawyers reminded me. “Everything you tell them can and will be used against you.”
***
Then, that first excruciating deposition. I had no way to suspect that they would wield my college feminist column against me during our fight. I learned that my vocal rage towards the patriarchy, once a point of pride, could be dangled over my head like a sharpened knife. I could not coexist as both a writer and as a victim.
With the mounting pressure of forced silence and the terror of depositions to come, I stopped writing. I resisted the urge to express myself. I turned inwards, learning to keep my thoughts and emotions within, where they would be safe from wreaking unpredictable havoc.
I learned that my vocal rage towards the patriarchy, once a point of pride, could be dangled over my head like a sharpened knife. I could not coexist as both a writer and as a victim.
I stopped texting updates to my closest friends. Whenever they asked me about how the lawsuit was going, I responded with vague answers like “fine” and “okay.” I was frightened that they’d be pulled into a deposition or onto the witness stand because of a private vulnerability I’d revealed.
My writing, once a liberatory microphone, was now a stick of dynamite, waiting to blow up my case at the touch of a flame.
***
A twist in my story: unceremoniously and unexpectedly, my lawsuit was dismissed a few days before a long-awaited trial. I called my lawyers, distraught, but they relayed only practical guidance.
“We tell all our clients — the legal system is not where healing is found,” they said. “Now that it’s all over, you’re going to have to find that on your own.”
This was news to me. Perhaps naively, I’d assumed that the legal system was the ultimate path to justice. Three years prior, I’d filed the lawsuit because the abuser and alma mater refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. I’d thought it was the only way to correct the record, and reveal the truth. It was the final lifeline I’d grasped.
Then, as we prepared for trial, I had believed that accusing my abuser and alma mater in court was the key to my freedom. That the courtroom was where I would find my voice again — the one that had been lost to me after they turned writing into a dangerous outlet. Reclaiming my words would happen just as it did in the movies: I would walk up to that wooden stand, look my abuser, school officials, and the lawyers in the eye, and tell the jury what they had done to me.
But now that the door to the courtroom had shut, what came next? I hadn’t thought to imagine what lay beyond the next door, the one that led to the rest of my life.
***
I met my lawyers for a farewell lunch at a Thai restaurant in Orange County. As our final meeting wound down, they handed me a thick black binder. Tucked inside was a hard drive with all the damning documents from the three-year long lawsuit.
“There’s more than enough for you here,” they smiled. “Go write whatever you want.” I cradled the binder tightly in my arms as I waved out the car window to them one last time.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself after the case dismissal. I explored the Santa Monica Mountains on long solo hikes, watching the afternoon sun dip below the horizon. I signed up for classes at my neighborhood yoga studio, learning to regulate my breathing with each dip and arch of my belly. I practiced telling my story, slowly and hesitantly, during home-cooked dinners with my closest friends.
I knew I was free to write again. But after three years of silence, where would I start?
I had barely written in years, too skittish to jot down even journal entries during the darkest moments of the case.
So much had taken place during those years when I could not write. I had fallen in love while treating my complex trauma. I had faced my abuser for the first time since college. My family and I had reconciled after the lawsuit forced us to confront our painful history.
Like my sophomore year self, I was brimming with pent-up rage at the patriarchy. I’d seen for myself the lengths prestigious institutions would go to protect predators.
All of a sudden, I held this incriminating knowledge in my hands. I had my power back, now that I could wield my words again. They could abuse me, they could hurt my family, they could betray me, but they would not take my words away from me.
Could I write about all that? Did I have a choice?
***
The end of the lawsuit, contrary to my belief, was only just the beginning of the rest of my story. I discovered quickly, despite my fears: writing was not lost to me. Though I’d put down my pen, the voice within had only gotten stronger.
Over time, I learned to express myself again. I joined online writing classes, pouring my heart out to the duty-ridden workshop classmates who gasped with horror at the lawsuit’s scandalous details. In each class, my colleagues encouraged me to keep writing. “This is an important story,” they insisted. “Don’t stop.”
The month my lawsuit ended, The Rumpus, a dream publication of mine, posted an open submissions call for writers of color who had struggled with addiction. I submitted on a whim, then was astonished to learn that they’d selected my piece about naming my alcohol use disorder and acknowledging how I drank to hide my shame.
After the essays were published, the Rumpus editors, writers, and I gathered online for a live reading and celebration. I saw my classmates and friends’ names pop up on the attendee list as they posted supportive messages. “Go Iris!” they wrote. “Sending our love,” they cheered.
My writing, once a liberatory microphone, was now a stick of dynamite, waiting to blow up my case at the touch of a flame.
When it was my turn to read my essay aloud, my voice trembled as I faced the screen. “I took my first sip of alcohol the summer before starting eighth grade,” I began. For the next seven minutes, I imagined my words floating above my room, in an in-between space that belonged only to myself and the listeners. “This is not a story about sobriety,” I read from its last lines. “This is about naming pain where it exists.” And for the first time since writing those words down, I believed it to be true.
“Beautiful,” the strangers in the audience wrote. “Powerful,” my friends added. They heart-reacted to their favorite lines and typed them in the chat. Though we were online, my words felt caressed and nurtured as they passed through the hands of writers and friends across the country.
Here, I’d found an alternate public forum to the courtroom. It was here, through my writing, on my own terms, that the people I loved would meet me to bear witness. It was here that I could speak my truth, and I would find my own healing and purpose.
***
I realized: I had been writing all along. I had been writing since I found my voice as a columnist for my school newspaper. I had been writing when I posted “MeToo” on my Tumblr. I had been writing through whispers in my head even as the lawsuit prevented me from writing.
It was my rage that fueled my writing at the start, with the school newspaper column. It was my rage that kept my writing going. My rage was a powerful thing. My rage got me in trouble, but then saved me when I needed it most.
It’s been a year and a half since the case was dismissed. I’m free now from the lawsuit, but the powerful people and systems that silenced me are still at work, silencing other victims and survivors.
The strongest weapon I have to wield against the silence are my words. I became a reporter who writes about the legacies of war and colonization through a feminist lens. I’m writing a memoir about the violence they wrought upon my body — my abuser, my alma mater, those lawyers.
There’s an ironic justice to my writing: all those institutions were desperate to read my words and find something in them to use against me. Now, hopefully, they’ll be able to read all they want.
Someday, maybe, I may stop writing about what happened to me. But until that day, I will write, and write, and write, because there is no one stopping me now.
Learn more about this series and how to submit your writing for consideration.
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Thanks for sharing this example of a failed legal battle. It’s not often you hear about the ones that did not succeed.
Yes!!! Keep writing. So much of your story is familiar. I'm rooting for you. Thank you for sharing your journey. May those institutions settle in and read away; YOU WIN, IRIS!