The next day , Churchill filed a lawsuit in state court claiming that the firing was retribution for his expressing politically unpopular views . The jury in Churchill 's suit for reinstatement weighed the university 's claims of academic misconduct per jury instructions it received in the case . As Stanley Fish said , " It was the jury ’ s task to determine whether Churchill ’ s dismissal would have occurred independently of the adverse political response to his constitutionally protected statements . " The jury found that the alleged misconduct would not have led to Churchill 's firing and rejected the university 's academic misconduct claim as the grounds for dismissal . On April 1 , 2009 , a Colorado jury found that Churchill had been wrongly fired , and awarded $ 1 in damages . As one of the jurors said later in a press interview , " it wasn 't a slap in his face or anything like that when we didn 't give him any money . It 's just that [ Churchill 's attorney ] David Lane kept saying this wasn 't about the money , and in the end , we took his word for that . " Churchill 's counsel asked Chief Judge Larry J. Naves of the Denver District Court to order reinstatement in light of the verdict .