From Thursday's decision by N.Y. trial judge Dakota Ramseur in Talbert v. Tynes, rejecting defendants' motion to dismiss:
In his complaint, Talbert alleges that Tynes, an acquaintance and former Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, made various posts to Twitter in November 2021 concerning their interactions as students that accused him of stalking and of being generally abusive and manipulative towards women. More specifically, Tynes' tweets responded to a photograph shared by third party Derecka Purnell, a prominent scholar and author on Black History, that identified Talbert as being "in the tradition of black liberation theology" and as "legendary James Cone's last student." Tynes reposted the image with the caption, "If I speak, Twitter will suspend me," followed by two tweets: "Not the abolitionist [Purnell] with my stalker," and "That man has harmed multiple women and is abusive and manipulative, but congrats on his dissertation, I guess."
Talbert contends that these statements were false, published with actual malice, and caused reputational, emotional, and professional harm.
In support of her … motion to dismiss, Tynes submitted an affidavit describing the context of her prior interactions with him and the alleged basis for her public tweets. In it, she explains that they both attended Columbia University as graduate students between 2017 and 2020, enrolled in a Spring 2018 seminar titled DuBois@150, and participated in a shared study group.
