UTHSC grad wins free speech lawsuit after nearly being expelled for ‘vulgar’ social media posts

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - Exhausting and stressful—that’s how Dr. Kimberly Diei describes the past five years of her life.

In 2019, the University of Tennessee graduate was given a warning about her posts on her personal social media accounts.

The school claimed the posts were crude, sexual, and vulgar.

In 2020, the university’s professionalism committee voted to expel her from her doctoral program.

“They said that they did not like a lot of the content that was posted,” Dr. Diei told Action News 5, “and left me to guess what was the issue. They never stated specifics.”

Diei began to seek counsel after concluding that her expulsion was illegal: “I reached out to a bunch of organizations.”

Searching for answers, Diei soon received the aid of The Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression- a nonprofit dedicated to defending free speech; it was determined that Diei’s First Amendment rights were violated.

In 2021, Diei’s attorney, Greg Greubel, filed a lawsuit on Diei’s behalf and finally won the case this year. They settled for $250,000.

Attorney Gruebel spoke to Action News 5, stating that he wants the win to be a clear message, “Hopefully [the settlement] will be a warning to schools across the country to stop it. Just leave your students alone. It’s a very easy thing to do.”

Dr. Diei is relieved, but also still reeling from the whole debacle.

“It still feels so surreal that I even had to go through this ordeal, and now I’m getting a check from it, and I was just trying to stick up for myself. I wasn’t planning on becoming a leader of free speech or anything so it’s still so crazy to think about.”

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