Federal Court Rejects Sandy Hook Denier's Claims

The 11th U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Florida Atlantic University’s decision to fire a professor who promoted conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, WWSB-ABC reported. The former professor of communication and multimedia studies, James Tracy, had argued that his termination was in violation of the First Amendment. But the federal appeals court agreed with a jury’s earlier determination that Tracy failed to prove that his termination was about the Sandy Hook comments on his blog, rather than a long-running dispute about his alleged failure to complete a contractually required outside activities report for the university. The unanimous, three-judge opinion was written by Judge Julie Carnes. Florida Atlantic previously said that it defended Tracy's speech rights for years and that he was fired for breaking rules, not what he said.