FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ A former Florida Atlantic University professor is not entitled to a new trial over his claim that he was fired in retaliation for calling the Sandy Hook massacre a hoax, a judge ruled Tuesday.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg comes four months after a jury rejected James Tracy's free speech lawsuit.
In her 31-page ruling, Rosenberg wrote that Tracy failed to prove "any argument that the evidence did not support the jury's verdict."
Tracy, a communications professor for FAU from 2002 until January 2016, was seeking to be reinstated as a tenured faculty member and receive unspecified damages.
An uproar began in late 2012 over Tracy's conspiracy theory blog. In one entry, he raised doubts over whether the Sandy Hook mass shooting _ which killed 20 children and six teachers _ actually happened. Tracy later contributed to a book titled "Nobody Died at Sandy Hook: It Was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control."
FAU officials say they never censored Tracy or prevented him from expressing his conspiracy theorist opinions. The university argued he was fired after repeatedly and intentionally refusing to file mandatory disclosure forms that require all professors to reveal outside work and activities that could affect the university.
