CV NEWS FEED // In a decision hailed as a victory for both religious liberty and freedom of the press, an Indiana court on Monday dismissed a pro-abortion professor’s defamation lawsuit against Notre Dame’s student newspaper, The Irish Rover.
“The Court has found that the alleged defamatory statements were true, within the meaning of the law, not made with actual malice, did not contain a defamatory inference,” the St. Joseph Superior Court stated in its ruling.
In addition, the court held that the statements in question “were made in the furtherance of the defendant’s right to free speech, were made in connection with a public issue, were made with good faith and with a reasonable basis in law and fact.”
“Tamara Kay v. The Irish Rover was rightfully dismissed this morning!” the Catholic student-run publication wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Monday. “Indiana Court reaffirms veracity of the Rover’s reporting on Kay’s promotion of abortion last fall.”
The Rover also indicated that “[t]he case was dismissed under Indiana’s Anti-[Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP)] law.”
“Anti-SLAPP laws provide defendants a way to quickly dismiss meritless lawsuits … filed against them for exercising speech, press, assembly, petition, or association rights,” according to the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press (RCFP), a non-profit organization aimed at protecting the rights of journalists. “These laws aim to discourage the filing of SLAPP suits and prevent them from imposing significant litigation costs and chilling protected speech.”
Indiana adopted its anti-SLAPP law in 1998. A majority of states have such laws on the books.
In fact, preventing SLAPP suits appears to be a rare area of bipartisan agreement. Both reliably red states – such as Indiana, Florida, Texas, and Utah – and overwhelmingly blue states – including California, Hawaii, Illinois, and New York – have active anti-SLAPP laws.
In July 2023, CatholicVote reported:
Tamara Kay, a professor of Global Affairs and Sociology at Notre Dame, filed a lawsuit against … the Irish Rover, alleging that they “falsely attributed” statements to her that “are defamatory per se and establish a willful intent to portray [her] in a negative and disparaging manner.”
At the same time, the Rover announced it planned to file a motion to dismiss Kay’s suit, citing Indiana’s anti-SLAPP law.
>> IRISH ROVER SUED BY PRO-ABORTION PROFESSOR, WILL FILE MOTION TO DISMISS <<
“Because Kay’s claims are baseless, we wish to put this behind us as quickly as possible so that we can reorient our focus upon promoting the Catholic identity of Notre Dame,” Rover Editor in Chief Emeritus Joseph DeReuil told CatholicVote.
Again per CatholicVote’s July reporting:
The lawsuit is in reference to two articles the Rover published that reported on Kay’s pro-abortion advocacy efforts on campus and how she sought to help students obtain emergency contraception and abortifacients. The October article highlighted how Kay presented her pro-abortion viewpoint during a September 21 school-sponsored panel.
A follow-up article published in March discussed a talk Kay gave to Notre Dame’s College Democrats group. During the talk, she was asked to give students advice on how to be effective pro-abortion activists.
“Knowing that the things that you reported on were factual, why did [Kay] feel the need to deny all of these claims publicly and really make a dispute about this?” CatholicVote’s Tom Pogasic asked DeReuil during a July LOOPcast interview.
“That’s honestly a question that’s been on my mind a lot,” answered the Catholic student journalist.
