An Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of Notre Dame professor Tamara Kay’s lawsuit against the Irish Rover Jan. 30.
Kay had sued the Rover in May 2023, alleging the paper had published defamatory and false statements in two articles about allegedly offering assistance to students seeking abortions.
A St. Joseph County Superior Court judge threw out the lawsuit in Jan. 2024, arguing the Rover’s comments were not defamatory and their speech was protected under Indiana’s anti-SLAPP law which aims to protect freedom of speech. Kay then appealed the lawsuit in Feb. 2024.
Judge Paul Mathias authored the majority opinion of the appeals court, with judges Elaine Brown and Dana Kenworthy concurring. Mathias argued Kay did not provide enough evidence “to establish a genuine issue of material fact on that question.”
“We agree with the trial court that the undisputed facts established that The Irish Rover’s two articles were written in good faith and that the alleged defamatory statements were not false,” Mathias wrote.
