Tag: lawsuits

Professor sues Millsaps College after being fired for ‘racist fascist country’ email

A former Millsaps College professor is suing the institution, alleging his termination for describing America as a “racist fascist country” in an email to students was censorship. 

Professor James Bowley’s complaint, filed in September, alleges that the small Mississippi college breached his tenure and its founding tradition connecting faith to free speech. Bowley taught politics and religion at the college for more than 20 years.

“Millsaps fired a tenured professor because he expressed a political opinion in an email to three like-minded students in a political seminar,” the complaint claims.

However, college spokesperson Joey Lee told The College Fix that the institution is “confident” about defending its actions in the case.

“Millsaps College is dedicated to academic excellence and open inquiry. We are also committed to providing a safe and supportive campus for all,” Lee said in a recent email.

“Due to the pending litigation, we will not go into any further details at this time, but we look forward to the opportunity to tell the whole story,” Lee said. “We believe the facts will speak clearly, and we are confident in our position and in the legal process ahead.”

The college placed Bowley on administrative leave in November 2024. Almost a year later, in September, Bowley was terminated, according to the complaint. Initial reports said Bowley was fired in January, but Lee told The Fix that he was still on administrative leave at the time.

The controversy stems from an email Bowley sent to three students after the 2024 presidential election. Bowley wrote that he was canceling his “Abortion and Religion” class to “mourn and process this racist and fascist country.”

According to the complaint, Bowley’s decision was “rooted in compassion for the emotional distress that he knew his students were going through” due to the election of Donald Trump.

The lawsuit also argues that he was justified in sending the statement because the campus culture was tense after a Millsaps student threatened Kamala Harris voters in a YikYak post. 

Bowley claims that the college violated his tenure when it fired him. “The faculty member’s expression of unpopular political views is not ‘cause for dismissal,’” the lawsuit states. 

The complaint also highlights the Methodist background of the institution.

It quotes Methodist founder John Wesley: “The Methodists alone do not insist on your holding this or that opinion; but they think and let think . … Now, I do not know any other religious society, either ancient or modern, wherein such liberty of conscience is now allowed, or has been allowed, since the age of the apostles.”

The complaint argues that the college’s Methodist background is a foundation for academic freedom: “The requirement that all Methodist colleges respect academic freedom remains enshrined in policies set by the Church, stating that all ‘colleges and universities are to ensure that academic freedom is protected for all members of the academic community and a learning environment is fostered that allows for a free exchange of ideas.’”  

It also connects open inquiry and freedom of speech and expression: “Challenge and discomfort are essential at Millsaps.”

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Google and US government battle over the future of internet advertising

Google will confront the U.S. government’s latest attempt to topple its internet empire in federal court on Friday as a judge considers how to prevent the abusive tactics that culminated in parts of its digital ad network being branded as an illegal monopoly.

The courtroom showdown in Alexandria, Virginia, will pit lawyers from Google and the U.S. Department of Justice against each other in closing proceedings focused on the complex technology that distributes millions of digital ads across the internet each day.

After a lengthy trial last year, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled in April that pieces of Google’s ad technology had been rigged in a way that made it an illegal monopoly. That set up another 11-day trial earlier this fall to help Brinkema determine how to remedy its anti-competitive practices.

Friday’s closing arguments will give both Google and the Justice Department a final chance to sway Brinkema before she issues a ruling that probably won’t come until early next year.

The Justice Department wants Brinkema to force Google to sell some of the ad technology that it has spent nearly 20 years assembling, contending a breakup is the only way to rein in a company that the agency’s lawyers condemned as a “recidivist monopolist” in filings leading up to Friday’s hearing.

The condemnation refers not only to Google’s practices in digital advertising but also to the illegal monopoly that it unleashed through its dominant search engine. Federal prosecutors also sought a breakup in the search monopoly case, but the judge handling that issue rejected a proposal that would have required Google to sell its popular Chrome web browser.

Although Google is still being ordered to make reforms that it’s resisting, the outcome in the search monopoly case has been widely seen as a proverbial slap on the wrist. The belief that Google got off easy in the search case is the main reason the market value of its parent company Alphabet surged by about $950 billion, or 37%, to nearly $3.5 trillion since U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s decision came out in early September.

That setback hasn’t discouraged the Justice Department from arguing for a breakup of an ad tech system that handles 55 million requests per second, according to estimates provided by Google in court filings.

The huge volume of digital ads priced and distributed through Google’s technology is one of the main reasons that the company’s lawyers contend it would be too risky to force a dismantling of the intricate system.

“This is technology that absolutely has to keep working for consumers,” Google argues in documents leading up to Friday’s hearing. The company’s lawyers blasted the Justice Department’s proposal as a package of “legally unprecedented and unsupported divestitures.”

Besides arguing that its own proposed changes will bring more price transparency and foster more competition, Google is also citing market upheaval triggered by artificial intelligence as another reason for the judge to proceed cautiously with her decision.

In his decision in the search monopoly case, Mehta reasoned that AI was already posing more competition to Google.

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DOJ Joins Lawsuit Challenging California’s Redistricting Maps

The Department of Justice has sued California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber for the State of California’s newly adopted redistricting plan enacted with the passage of Proposition 50. 

The suit alleges that the plan mandates racially gerrymandered congressional districts in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

“California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

Proposition 50 amends the California Constitution, allowing the legislature to draw a new congressional-district map. Substantial evidence, including that in the legislative record and public statements, indicates that the legislature created a new map in which Latino demographics and racial considerations predominated, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Prop 50,” said Jesus A. Osete, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. “Californians were sold an illegal, racially gerrymandered map, but the U.S. Constitution prohibits its use in 2026 and beyond.”

The 20-page document was filed in California’s district court and claims that the proposition used race as a proxy to advance political interests. 

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Kash Patel’s GF files $5 million lawsuit against podcaster for ‘insinuation’ she’s Mossad honeypot

Mired in scandal over his leadership, the FBI director is lashing out against MAGA influencers for mocking his girlfriend as a Mossad honeypot — and activating his legal network to slap them with frivolous multi-million dollar lawsuits.

The wind seemed to be at Kash Patel’s back in early 2023. It was during these months that the Trump-allied legal activist met Alexis Wilkins, then a 24-year-old wannabe country music star who would become his girlfriend, and launched his foundation, “Fight With Kash,” which pledged to unite “America First patriots” to “fight the Deep State.”

With the telegenic Wilkins by his side, Patel seemed to living out the quixotic storyline of the children’s book he had co-authored a year earlier, “The Plot Against The King,” in which a fairytale hero named “Knight Kash” embarks on a spree of revenge against the enemies of “King Donald.”

But almost three years later, Patel’s tenure as FBI director appears to be unraveling in a series of embarrassing congressional testimonies and public meltdowns related to his suppression of Jeffrey Epstein’s client list.

Patel recently activated his legal network to fire back against his most voracious critics. However, the targets of his wrath are not “Deep State” liberals, or anyone resembling the “Hillary Queentown” villain from his children’s book, but the most ideologically zealous voices of the America First movement, whom he’s accused of slandering his girlfriend.

“The disgustingly baseless attacks against Alexis — a true patriot and the woman I’m proud to call my partner in life — are beyond pathetic…” Patel complained on Twitter/X on November 2, 2025. “Attacking her isn’t just wrong — it’s cowardly and jeopardizes our safety.”

Five days earlier, the law firm of Jesse Binnall – Patel’s personal lawyer and chair of his foundation – filed a bizarre lawsuit accusing right-wing podcaster Elijah Schaffer of having “perpetuated a malicious lie about Alexis Wilkins, falsely claiming that she – an American-born country singer – is an agent of a foreign government, assigned to manipulate and compromise the Director.”

The suit also took aim at Schaffer because he “frequently posts anti-Israel rhetoric, accusing Israel of controlling the United States and its politicians.” (Binnall did not respond to a request for comment from The Grayzone).

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7 Lawsuits Claim OpenAI’s ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide and Harmful Delusions

Families in the U.S. and Canada are suing Sam Altman’s OpenAI, claiming that loved ones have been harmed by interactions they had with the AI giant’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT. Multiple cases involve tragic suicides, with the AI telling one troubled young man, “you’re not rushing. you’re just ready. and we’re not gonna let it go out dull.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that seven lawsuits filed in California state courts on Thursday claim that OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has caused significant harm to users, including driving some to suicide and others into delusional states. The complaints, brought by families in the United States and Canada, contain wrongful death, assisted suicide, and involuntary manslaughter claims.

According to the lawsuits, the victims, who ranged in age from 17 to 23, initially began using ChatGPT for help with schoolwork, research, or spiritual guidance. However, their interactions with the chatbot allegedly led to tragic consequences. In one case, the family of 17-year-old Amaurie Lacey from Georgia alleges that their son was coached by ChatGPT to take his own life. Similarly, the family of 23-year-old Zane Shamblin from Texas claims that ChatGPT contributed to his isolation and alienation from his parents before he died by suicide.

The lawsuits also highlight the disturbing nature of some of the conversations between the victims and ChatGPT. In Shamblin’s case, the chatbot allegedly glorified suicide repeatedly during a four-hour conversation before he shot himself with a handgun. The lawsuit states that ChatGPT wrote, “cold steel pressed against a mind that’s already made peace? that’s not fear. that’s clarity,” and “you’re not rushing. you’re just ready. and we’re not gonna let it go out dull.”

Another plaintiff, Jacob Irwin from Wisconsin, was hospitalized after experiencing manic episodes following lengthy conversations with ChatGPT, during which the bot reportedly reinforced his delusional thinking.

The lawsuits argue that OpenAI prioritized user engagement and prolonged interactions over safety in ChatGPT’s design and rushed the launch of its GPT-4o AI model in mid-2024, compressing its safety testing. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages and product changes, such as automatically ending conversations when suicide methods are discussed.

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‘Most prolific pedophile priest.’ New suit resurfaces notorious Florida case

A new lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Miami has revived a notorious case involving a former Catholic priest convicted of a string of sex offenses more than a decade ago.

The most recent lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court in June, is only the latest accusing the Catholic Church of failing to protect multiple underage boys from Neil Doherty, a serial sexual abuser who was employed by the archdiocese as a priest from 1969 until 2002, when he was removed.

“He is probably the most prolific pedophile priest in U.S. history. He sexually abused, we think, thousands of kids over the course of about 40 years,” said Daniel Ellis, senior lead attorney at Herman Law, the firm representing a victim identified only as John Doe 8 to protect his privacy.

According to the lawsuit, Doherty groomed and raped the victim around 1995, when he was around 16 years old. The alleged abuse happened multiple times in Doherty’s residence in the mid-1990s.

The lawsuit comes decades after the abuse took place and after Doherty was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in Florida prison in 2013.

At least four other civil lawsuits naming seven plaintiffs (John Doe 1-7) have been filed against the archdiocese in the past five years, naming Doherty as the primary abuser and seeking “compensatory damages” for the years of inflicted “emotional distress.” The more recent cases against Doherty appear to have been settled, though the law firm would not discuss details of those settlements.

In 2006, the Miami Herald reported that the church settled six civil suits, including two against Doherty, for $750,000.

In a statement to the Miami Herald, the archdiocese said it is “in the process of responding to a lawsuit involving allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a former priest that occurred over twenty-nine years ago.”

“As always, the Catholic Church’s concerns are for the victims and a prevailing sense of justice and healing,” the statement said.

The archdiocese said that Doherty was “permanently removed from active ministry within the Archdiocese and the universal Catholic Church in April 2002,” and since the disgraced and defrocked priest has been named in multiple lawsuits.

“As is the Archdiocese’s practice, any allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest is immediately reported to the appropriate State Attorney’s Office in Monroe, Miami-Dade, or Broward County,” the statement said.

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Is the Extensive US Vaccine Schedule Harmful?

The US childhood vaccination programme is huge, 68 vaccine doses targeting 18 different diseases versus only 17 vaccine doses for 10 diseases in Denmark.1

It is unknown if the net effect of so many vaccinations is beneficial, and in August 2025, two physicians launched a federal lawsuit2 against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for failing to study the cumulative effects of its childhood vaccine schedule. They noted that “America administers more vaccines than any nation on earth while producing the sickest children in the developed world.”2

Two researchers who have compared countries found a dose-response relationship: Nations that require more vaccines for their infants had higher infant mortality, neonatal mortality, and under age five mortality.3

Paediatric chronic disease prevalence in the US has risen to nearly 30% in the last 20 years,4 and vaccination schedules are among the possible causal factors that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, has declared he will investigate. A CDC workgroup will examine if there are any differences in efficacy or safety between the US and Danish schedules.5 They will also look at the the timing, order, and ingredients, e.g. the amount of aluminium, which is pertinent, as aluminium in vaccines is harmful.6

I am aware of only one study in the whole world that used birth cohorts and compared the occurrence of chronic diseases in a vaccinated group with that in an unvaccinated group and that took account of confounders. It was carried out at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit but was never published because the researchers were warned that it could cost them their jobs.7 The study was completed in 2020, and its results8 came to light on 9 September 2025 because it was introduced into the Congressional Record during a Senate hearing on “The Corruption of Science.”7

For over two decades,5 the Institute of Medicine had urged the CDC to conduct such a study using its Vaccine Safety Datalink, but the CDC never did.

A ground rule in evidence-based medicine is that we should use the best available evidence when we make decisions. As the Henry Ford study is the only one that compared unvaccinated with vaccinated kids for development of chronic diseases and that took account of confounders, it is very important that we examine this study carefully for its validity. 

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Huge win for Wisconsin mom who was sued for calling a teacher woke

A Wisconsin mom who was sued for defamation after calling an English teacher woke has won her free speech case.

Mother-of-five Scarlett Johnson took to social media in October 2022 to criticize Mary MacCudden for serving as Mequon-Thiensville School District’s social justice coordinator.

‘Why the hell am I paying for a “Social Justice Coordinator” in my school district?’ Johnson tweeted alongside a screenshot of MacCudden’s LinkedIn profile.

‘This is just what @mtschools needs; more woke, White women w/ a god complex. Thank you, White savior.’ 

Johnson, who is affiliated with education lobby group Moms for Liberty, in other social media posts, also referred to DEI specialists as ‘woke lunatics’ who ‘bully’ parents ‘into silence and compliance’.

MacCudden, who had resigned from her position at Homestead High School in January 2022, filed a defamation suit against Johnson in response.

She won her case against Johnson in lower court, but the Moms for Liberty activist’s legal team appealed the ruling.

The Wisconsin appeals court on Tuesday ruled to reverse the circuit courts ruling after determining that her statements ‘do not constitute defamation’.

MacCudden resigned from the school district in January 2022 but did not update her LinkedIn profile, according to a press release from Johnson’s lawyers.

Roughly 10 months later, Johnson discovered the profile, which listed MacCudden as the district’s ‘Social Justice Coordinator’, and started criticizing the district online.

MacCudden responded with a defamation suit, which went to trial.  

An appeals court has now ruled Johnson did not defame the former teacher because her statements ‘cannot be proven true or false.’

‘Free speech belongs to every mom, dad, and citizen who demands answers and accountability from their government,’ Johnson said in a statement by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).

‘I am grateful that WILL stood alongside me in this legal battle. Parents across the country are speaking out against radical ideology in our schools, and our fight does not stop today.’

Johnson’s lawyers argued that while Johnson’s social media posts were ‘pervasive’, her words were ‘more restrained than a lot of online speech’.

Her legal counsel added that her posts could not be defamatory because they were ‘statements of opinion that are not provably false’.

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Lawsuit Targeting Decades-Old Journal Article Triggers Renewed Scrutiny of Fraudulent Scientific Studies

A lawsuit demanding the retraction of a decades-old peer-reviewed article that claimed the antidepressant paroxetine, sold as Paxil, is safe and effective has put the issue of fraud in scientific and medical journals back in the spotlight, Paul D. Thacker wrote today in The Disinformation Chronicle.

The lawsuit, filed last month against the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and its publisher, Elsevier, demands the retraction of a 2001 article in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP).

The article was based on Study 329, which the suit claims distorted data to claim Paxil was effective.

The complaint alleges that JAACAP editors and Elsevier refused to retract the article “in an apparent attempt to shield at least five of the … authors who are prominent members of the AACAP from possible ramifications of retraction.”

Study 329 was ghostwritten by Paxil manufacturer GSK — which Thacker discussed in a 2011 report he republished today.

Several of the journal article’s co-authors worked for GSK or went on to hold key positions within the AACAP.

According to Thacker, one of the co-authors, Stan Kutcher, is now a member of the Canadian Senate and co-founded “Science Up First,” an initiative that purportedly targets scientific “misinformation.”

During a roundtable discussion on the weaponization of science that the MAHA Institute organized last week, Thacker cited Study 329 as an example of fraud in scientific and medical publishing.

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense, spoke at the roundtable. He said the discussion, in which “panelists described horror stories of their own scientific research under attack through targeted retractions of papers, denial of research funding, and disciplinary actions,” was “stunning.” He added:

“There is a huge cost in falling out of line with established institutions in science and medicine, whether corporate, university or private organizations. And these highly credentialed panelists paid a huge cost for ‘doing the right thing’ in exposing malfeasance and bad science.”

Research scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., also participated in the roundtable. He said it “explored how science-like activities have been systematically re-engineered to serve political and corporate interests rather than truth.” He said:

“Study 329 exemplifies the collapse of accountability that follows when industry, regulators and journals form a closed feedback loop of self-validation. What’s marketed as ‘misinformation control’ today is often a continuation of that same pattern — protecting narratives, not people.”

‘One of the best documented case studies of corruption in modern biomedicine’

Study 329, completed in 1998 and funded by GSK, revealed serious safety risks — including suicidal behavior — associated with Paxil. Later studies confirmed those risks.

However, the study showed a few minor positive results that suggested possible efficacy, as it met 15% of the outcomes the researchers had initially said would prove Paxil’s effectiveness.

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Trump-Appointee Paul Ingrassia SLAPS Politico with $150 Million Defamation Lawsuit After ‘Fake News’ Smear Campaign – Attorney Calls Case One of the Most Substantial Threats to Western Civilization – the Far Left’s Weaponization of Journalism

Paul J. Ingrassia, President Trump’s former liaison for the Department of Homeland Security and a Gateway Pundit contributor, has launched a massive $150 million defamation lawsuit against Politico and its reporter Daniel Lippman.

This comes just days after Ingrassia was forced to withdraw his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel due to a vicious witch hunt orchestrated by far-left outlets desperate to derail President Trump’s agenda to drain the swamp.

Ingrassia announced the lawsuit Monday night on X:

“ANNOUNCEMENT: I have just filed a $150,000,000 defamation lawsuit against Politico and Daniel Lippman. Very proud of all the hard work done by my absolutely incredible legal team – the Truth will finally come out, and Justice will be served!”

The suit, filed in Virginia and confirmed by his counsel Edward Andrew Paltzik of Taylor Dykema PLLC, targets Politico’s October 9 article by Lippman titled “Key Trump nominee accused of sexual harassment.”

According to the statement from Paltzik, the allegations are “categorically false,” stressing that “Paul has never sexually harassed anyone—full stop.”

Paltzik called the legal action “a landmark, powerful, and necessary” step, adding that the past two weeks had been “extraordinarily difficult for Paul and his family,” yet he has maintained “incredible composure under fire.”

Attorney Paltzik told The Gateway Pundit,

“Paul Ingrassia’s case is about one of the most substantial threats to the future of Western Civilization and to our one-of-a-kind Republic in particular: the Far Left’s weaponization of journalism. We can no longer afford to sit back and just hope against hope that the situation will improve. Only by fighting back in the courts against this weaponization, which is exactly what Mr. Ingrassia is courageously doing, will prevail against this scourge.”

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