FCDF Update

July 18, 2016

Victory! FCDF Celebrates Fifth Case Successfully Defending Academic Freedom:
Loyola Marymount University Reinstates Employee Falsely Accused of Hate Crime
FCDF has been defending Gigi Kurz, a devout
Catholic woman who has worked for fifteen
years at Loyola Marymount University (LMU),
an ostensibly Catholic university. She was
suspended by LMU after being accused of
committing a hate crime by a selfproclaimed gender-neutral woman. The
hate crime: respectfully dialoguing with the woman about a basic tenet of the
Catholic faith that there are only two genders: male and female.
We are proud to announce that LMU has restored Gigi Kurz to her position without
any loss of pay or benefits. In a letter she recently sent us she wrote:
I was very blessed, to have been referred to you. I was frantic and you calmed me
down. Your firm gave me encouragement and steadied me. And then you turned the
table around on the whole issue to go on the attack. It would have really damaged me
and my family financially if we had to pay for the quality of legal work you gave us so
willingly offered through the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund.

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As she said, we were quickly able to turn the tables on LMU because this was not our
first academic freedom case. In fact, this is our fifth case defending employees at
academic institutions:
Anne Hendershott, PhD Dr. Hendershott wrote an editorial published in the Washington Post supporting
President Bush in his refusal to let a suspected terrorist into the U.S. This led to a liberal faculty member at the
University of San Diego (a Catholic institution) launching a student boycott of her classes. We threatened a lawsuit
against the offending professor and the University. As a result, the University immediately suspended the boycott
and made the offending faculty member write a letter of apology in which they promised not to engage in any such
conduct against Dr. Hendershott in the future.

Bobby Lopez, PhD Dr. Lopez was raised by two lesbians, and has drawn
on his personal experience to write a number of articles in support of
traditional marriage and against gay adoptions. As a result, gay students
and lesbian administrators at California State Northridge University
waged a campaign against him, falsely accusing him of all kinds of
misconduct, and they encouraged other students to file complaints
against him. We successfully defended him through two rounds of
complaints so that no adverse action was taken against him, first helping
him gain, and then keep, his tenured position.
Patricia Januzzi Mrs. Jannuzzi made a posting on her personal
Facebook page in support of traditional marriage and was savagely
attacked by celebrities and gay activists around the nation. She was suspended from her position at a Catholic High
School in New Jersey and threatened with termination. We teamed up with our FCDF Chairperson Maggie
Gallagher, and FCDF Advisory Board Member Robby George, in advising Mrs. Januzzi and her local counsel on how
to successfully navigate through this well publicized controversy. As a result, she was fully reinstated in her
teaching position without a loss of pay.
Brad Johnson Mr. Johnson posted large patriotic banners in his classroom at a public high school, acknowledging
the place of God in our nations public life (e.g. In God We Trust and One Nation Under God). We corepresented him and successfully obtained an injunction from the Federal District court, allowing him to continue to
hang the banners despite the school districts demand that he take them down. A liberal teacher at the same school
then started false rumors attacking his professional and personal integrity. After the school failed to act to act, we
filed a defamation lawsuit, took numerous depositions, and just before trial obtained for him a large monetary
settlement.
We take these cases very seriously, and like Gigi Kurz said, we are ready to go on the attack. During our successful
representation of the four San Diego Firefighters, who were ordered against their will to participate in the San
Diego Gay Pride Parade, I was falsely accused of unethical conduct by a liberal law professor. The professor wrote a
scathing editorial attacking me in the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Times newspaper. After we threatened suit against
the law professor, the law school, and the newspaper that published his attack piece, the law professor issued a
formal detailed retraction which was then published in the same newspaper.
Thank you for all your support so that we can defend people like Dr. Hendershott, Dr. Lopez, Mrs. Jannuzzi, Mr.
Johnson and Mrs. Kurz. Times are getting bad for adherents of traditional morality, even at ostensible Catholic and
Christian institutions (see this article I wrote for the Wanderer). Still, we have found that most anti-Christian
activists are really just big bullies, and like all bullies, if they actually have to fight, theyll usually back down.

Thank you for your continued support and prayers!

For Life and Freedom,

Charles LiMandri
President and Chief Counsel

If you would like to book Charles LiMandri for your next event or group meeting, please review his speaker profile,
and visit our website or call Kathy Denworth at (858) 759-9948.

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