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Tuesday, June 23, 2026

#TheyLied and the Fair Report Privilege - Reason

From Magistrate Judge Eric Long's opinion in Sun v. Xu (C.D. Ill.), decided in May 2020 but just posed on Westlaw:

The three Plaintiffs are two former students and one professor at the University of Illinois. The three Plaintiffs are suing former University of Illinois Professor Gary Xu …. The first Plaintiff, Xingjian Sun …, a female student at the University, claims Xu raped her, forced her to get an abortion, beat her, and attempted to hit her with a car during their two-year relationship. The second Plaintiff, Xing Zhao …, a female student at the University of Illinois, claims Xu sexually harassed her and took credit for her work. The third Plaintiff, Ao Wang …, is a professor at the University of Illinois. Professor Wang claims Xu tried to ruin his career in retaliation for an online article Professor Wang wrote about Xu abusing female students….

Plaintiffs made public comments about their allegations against Xu. The first Plaintiff, Sun, was interviewed by CBS Morning News, and a video of the interview was aired on CBS's television channel. Additionally, CBS published an article of Sun's interview on CBS News' website. In this interview, Sun stated Xu raped her, beat her, and tried to kill her by running her over with his car.

The second plaintiff, Zhao, is not quoted in the Sixth Tone report that details the allegations against Xu. {Sixth Tone is an online magazine that is owned by the Chinese Government. However, Sixth Tone's target audience is readers in the...



Read Full Story: https://reason.com/volokh/2022/01/03/theylied-and-the-fair-report-privilege/