Liberty University sued The New York Times for defamation Wednesday, accusing the paper of publishing a “fictional tale” about the school reopening after spring break and causing a coronavirus outbreak.
The Lynchburg, Virginia, school accused the paper of publishing a “click bait” story about a supposed coronavirus outbreak caused by the school reopening.
The story spread rapidly across local and national news outlets and on social media, according to the Virginia Circuit Court lawsuit from Wednesday.
The Times’ March 29 story, headlined: “Liberty University Brings Back Its Students, and Coronavirus Fears, Too,” was factually incorrect, the suit claims.
The story reported that about 12 students “were sick with symptoms that suggested Covid-19,” when the school reopened, the Times reported.
A doctor cited in the piece was misrepresented in the story — and also wasn’t the school doctor who would have been most knowledgeable on the subject, the court papers say.
The doctor told the Times that the bulk of the students had “‘upper respiratory infection’ — that is, a cold — not the lower respiratory infection COVID-19,” the suit states.
In fact, the students weren’t tested for the coronavirus because they didn’t meet the criteria for it, the suit claims.
“There was never an on-campus student diagnosed with COVID-19,” the suit claims.
“The only actual ‘viral’ element of this narrative that existed was the intense ‘viral’ internet attention it generated for the New York Times’ website and for those paying to advertise on that website.”
When classes ended two months after spring break, there were still no on-campus students who had been diagnosed with the virus, the court papers say.
Liberty claims in the suit that the Times writer was sent to Lynchburg “to engineer a specific fictional tale that portrayed Liberty and its President as a caricature the New York Times’ liberal audience would love: backward, irresponsible, anti-science, responsible for getting people sick in a pandemic, and closely tied to and mirroring President Trump.”
Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. said in a statement: “They target us because the University is a conservative and Christian institution.”
The Times did not immediately return a request for comment.