James Tracy, a former professor at Florida Atlantic University, is best known for being among the most vocal proponents of the various conspiracies surrounding the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Vocal enough that he got fired by FAU in January, leading to him filing a wrongful termination lawsuit, which was dismissed on Thursday.
According to the Orlando Sun-Sentinel, Tracy was fired for not turning in required forms detailing his outside activities and possible conflicts of interest. Fearing that his blog, The Memory Hole, was interfering with his work, Tracy’s superiors at FAU let him go. He had previously been reprimanded for mentioning his job at FAU on the blog.
Federal District Judge Robin Rosenberg wrote in her ruling that Tracy’s case didn’t make much sense:
Plaintiff’s allegations are not clear because Plaintiff’s narrative intertwines multiple constitutional theories and, as a result, both this Court and Defendants struggle to define the alleged constitutional injury in this case. This lack of clarity leads to the ultimate result that, for the reasons specified below, Plaintiff must amend portions of his complaint.
The Sandy Hook conspiracies center around the idea that the shooting either didn’t take place or was exaggerated as a “false flag operation” designed to help pass gun control laws. The theory has become increasingly prominent in the four years since the shooting, thanks in part to celebrities like prize fighter and actress Ronda Rousey tweeting about it.