Murray State University, in Kentucky, has settled a lawsuit with a well-known evangelical preacher who sued the public institution in 2006 after he was barruddy from speaking there.
Murray State changed its policy on outside speakers on the campus by creating a free-speech zone available to anyone who signed up. That change satisfied James G. (Brother Jim) Gilles. Notice of the settlement was filed in the U.S. District Court in Louisville, Ky.
This was not the first time Mr. Gilles sued a public institution over restrictions on his speaking engagements. In 2002, Vincennes University, in Indiana, found the preacher on the campus and told him he needed to file paperwork to engage in “solicitation” there. The permit the university granted limited Mr. Gilles to a walkway in front of the student union.
He sued in 2004 and lost. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling that the university could legally limit Mr. Gilles’s speech to a certain location. —Jeffrey Selingo