More than a dozen tenured faculty members of Antioch College have refiled a lawsuit seeking to keep the Board of Trustees of Antioch University from closing their liberal-arts college.

The faculty members initially sued in an Ohio court in August, accusing the trustees of failing to govern the college properly. The faculty members withdrew the suit in November, when it appeared that a group of alumni working as the Antioch College Continuation Corporation would be negotiating with the trustees to keep the institution alive.

But the board halted those negotiations last month, and announced that it was suspending operations at the college, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, as of the 2009 academic year.

The Antioch College Alumni Association has decried that move, and began a campaign to keep the college open, called “Non-Stop Antioch.” Many of the college’s 26 tenured faculty members support the effort.

Peter H. Townsend, a professor of geology and the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit, said more than the 17 professors who are plaintiffs support it. But faced with the loss of their jobs, they felt they could not afford to sign onto it, he said.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to block Antioch University from suspending the college’s operations, from terminating the employment of the college’s faculty, and from disposing of any college assets. It also asks the court to order the trustees to engage with the Antioch College Continuation Corporation “to amicably complete their negotiations allowing the ACCC to take responsibility for the college,” according to a news release.

Mr. Townsend said he and his colleagues recognized that their goal was a longshot, but cited the precedent of Prescott College, which was kept alive by a small corps of faculty members and students after its trustees closed it, in the mid-1970s.

He said the faculty wasn’t sure about issues like accreditation, but thought the college might be able to keep itself going by forming a temporary affiliation with another institution. —Goldie Blumenstyk