An appeal by Marshall University officials to dismiss a federal defamation lawsuit against them by a former athletics-compliance official was denied on Thursday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

The ruling clears the way for the former compliance officer, B. David Ridpath, now an assistant professor of sports management at Mississippi State University and director of the Drake Group, a college-sports watchdog group, to pursue his legal case against Marshall officials.

His lawsuit alleges that Marshall unfairly sullied his reputation in the industry during an NCAA investigation that found two major rules violations at the West Virginia university (The Chronicle, January 11, 2002). At a Congressional hearing in 2004, Mr. Ridpath said the university had made him a scapegoat for the violations (The Chronicle, September 15, 2004). “My career and reputation were in tatters, while the ones who started the program still work in college athletics,” he said.