A Richmond judge has thrown out a defamation lawsuit involving a former VCU instructor and the replacement scholar who took over his public administration course after he was abruptly fired.

D. Pulane Lucas, a health policy researcher, filed the suit late last year against former state government official Bill Leighty. Lucas claimed Leighty had unfairly criticized her handling of the graduate-level course she stepped in to teach. 

In a June 4 order, Circuit Court Judge Clarence N. Jenkins Jr. dismissed the case with prejudice, agreeing with Leighty’s side that there was no basis for the case to go any further. Leighty’s attorneys argued that none of his comments had the “defamatory sting” the law requires. Questioning his own firing by the Wilder School, Leighty’s court filings said, was protected speech on “a matter of public concern.”

“The court can read for itself and see that the emails are not defamatory,” wrote Leighty attorney Barbara A. Queen.

Richard Hawkins III, an attorney for Lucas, indicated the case may not be over yet.

“Although we have nothing but respect for Judge Jenkins, we disagree with his decision,” Hawkins said. “We are currently exploring our options for appeal."

An attorney for Leighty declined to comment.

Leighty was let go mid-semester from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs in March of 2025 after a dispute with former Gov. Doug Wilder, who works at the school in a position that would not give him direct control over the hiring and firing of staff. Leighty said he was fired after refusing to ask Mayor Danny Avula a hard-hitting question about the city’s relationship with VCU, a question Leighty believed Wilder was pushing to have asked during a virtual Wilder School event with Avula.

A onetime chief of staff to former Govs. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, Leighty publicly criticized the Wilder School over his firing. It was that criticism, some of it leveled in a letter written to the VCU Board of Visitors, that led to the defamation suit from Lucas.

Lucas, who has taught business and economics courses at Reynolds Community College, claimed Leighty had defamed her by relaying information he said he had heard from former students about what was happening in his former course. Leighty’s letter to VCU leaders suggested the course had slipped in educational quality, and pointed to perceived overlap between material Lucas was using at VCU and a separate nonprofit she runs, Policy Pathways Inc.

Leighty said he was told Lucas called the topic of public administration “so boring,” a comment he said left students “quite shocked and dismayed.” Lucas said the comment was stripped out of context, insisting she had actually said that teaching a 7 p.m. class straight from a textbook would be “so boring” without real-world case studies.

In a court filing urging the judge to let the case proceed, the attorney for Lucas argued Leighty had made statements of fact, not opinion, and had failed to check whether they were true. Taken together, the Lucas filing says, he was trying to show “he was a much better teacher than Dr. Lucas and that things would have been better off at VCU if he was still the teacher of the class.”

Leighty also raised the possibility that Lucas may have been hired because of her past associations with Wilder, a comment Lucas interpreted as a false insinuation she had been romantically involved with the former governor.

In a court filing, Leighty’s lawyer insisted Leighty “stated no such thing” and said the accusation was an attempt to “exaggerate and misclassify the facts.”

“In this instance, Leighty felt that his termination was unlawful and communicated with members of the administration and student government to protect the integrity of VCU and the Wilder School,” Leighty’s attorney wrote.

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org. VCU is a sponsor of The Richmonder but was not allowed to influence or review this story.