The defamation lawsuit brought against the Irish Rover by Prof. Tamara Kay in June 2023 was dismissed by St. Joseph County, Indiana, Superior Court on Jan 8, 2024, under Indiana’s Anti-SLAPP law.

This dismissal concludes the lawsuit brought against the Rover by Prof. Kay, in which Kay claimed that the Rover had defamed her through an October 2022 article on her public promotion of abortion and a March 2023 article reporting on a College Democrats lecture. The initial legal complaint claimed that the Rover, “has, and continues to intentionally act, with malice, wanton and willful misconduct and a reckless disregard for the truth all with the intent to damage and negatively impact the Plaintiff. ”

The court ruling affirmed that Kay “cannot voluntarily put herself into the national abortion issue either on the campus of Notre Dame or in a broader, national forum, by making multiple strong statements in favor of abortion rights and access to abortion and expect that it will not become newsworthy at Notre Dame and elsewhere.”