StopAntisemitism Wins Anti-SLAPP Ruling in Lawsuit Brought by Oregon Music Teacher

A federal judge has dismissed all four claims brought by Oregon music teacher Susan Lewis against StopAntisemitism and its executive director, Liora Reznichenko, finding that the statements at the center of the lawsuit were constitutionally protected opinions when viewed in the context of Lewis’s own social media posts.

The September 25 ruling represents a significant legal victory for StopAntisemitism, although it does not necessarily end the litigation. U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson dismissed Lewis’s complaint with leave to amend and gave her 30 days to file a new version.

StopAntisemitism responded to the ruling on X with a short message: “Update: The music teacher lost.”

That description captures the immediate outcome. StopAntisemitism won its special motion to strike under Oregon’s anti-SLAPP law, and none of the four claims in Lewis’s existing complaint survived.

But the court did not enter final judgment, and Nelson did not rule on the defendants’ alternative motion to dismiss. As of September 26, Lewis still had the opportunity to amend her complaint.

The dispute began with Lewis’s social media posts

Lewis worked as an independent contractor providing private music lessons at Valley Catholic in Oregon.

In August 2024, StopAntisemitism featured Lewis as part of its “Corrupting the Classroom” campaign, publishing screenshots of social media material associated with her and encouraging members of the public to contact Valley Catholic.

Among the statements examined during the litigation was a November 2023 post attributed to Lewis:

“Yeah these Hamas militants are going to wipe out Israel with their homemade bombs, small arms, hang gliders, grenades and sling shots. Be afraid, be very afraid.”

Susan Lewis

Lewis and The Intercept later described the statement as sarcasm about the military imbalance between Hamas and Israel. StopAntisemitism characterized Lewis as someone who “calls upon Hamas to destroy Israel.”

Another item Lewis shared stated:

“If Jewish people want their own state they shouldn’t put it on someone else’s state. Genocide is no way to make a state!”

Susan Lewis

StopAntisemitism characterized that material as Lewis denying “the Jewish connection to Israel.”

A separate graphic shared by Lewis stated that “Zionist Jews have managed to mentally condition humanity” into accepting what the post described as genocide in Palestine. StopAntisemitism shortened this to a claim that Lewis said “Jews control humanity, a dangerous trope.”

The organization also told its audience that “Students at Valley Catholic are in grave danger under Sue Lewis.”

Lewis disputed StopAntisemitism’s descriptions of her views and ultimately sued the organization and Reznichenko.

Why the judge sided with StopAntisemitism

The distinction between factual assertions and protected opinion became central to Nelson’s decision.

The judge did not rule that StopAntisemitism had proven its characterizations of Lewis to be literally true. Instead, she concluded that, considered in context, the disputed statements represented StopAntisemitism’s interpretations and opinions about material Lewis had publicly shared.

Nelson found that all of the challenged statements underlying Lewis’s defamation claim were “protected opinions under the First Amendment.”

An important factor was how StopAntisemitism presented its accusations.

The organization displayed screenshots and archive links to Lewis’s social media material alongside its descriptions. Readers therefore had the opportunity to compare StopAntisemitism’s interpretation with the underlying words themselves.

“Viewed contextually, defendants’ statements clearly express their interpretation of plaintiff’s own posts,” Nelson wrote.

The court said StopAntisemitism was expressing its interpretation of Lewis’s statements rather than representing that Lewis herself had used the organization’s exact wording.

Nelson also concluded that expressions including “antisemitic tirades,” “vile antisemitic hate” and “grave danger” were rhetorical or hyperbolic language rather than objectively verifiable statements of fact.

Even the claim that students were in “grave danger,” the judge found, was hyperbolic and based on StopAntisemitism’s interpretation of Lewis’s online speech.

The ruling did not declare StopAntisemitism’s characterizations “true”

That distinction is important to understanding what the court actually decided.

The ruling does not establish that Lewis literally called upon Hamas to destroy Israel. It does not establish that she posed a physical danger to students, nor does it declare every characterization published by StopAntisemitism factually accurate.

Instead, the court held that the challenged descriptions were constitutionally protected interpretations of material presented to readers.

As Nelson explained, the expression of a personal viewpoint is not susceptible to being proved true or false in the same manner as an objective factual assertion.

That finding defeated Lewis’s defamation claim.

Her false-light claim failed for essentially the same reason. The tortious-interference claim also failed because it relied on the same protected speech and therefore could not provide the wrongful conduct required for that claim.

The judge rejected Lewis’s intentional infliction of emotional distress claim as well, finding that StopAntisemitism’s publications, consisting of protected opinions presented alongside Lewis’s own words, did not constitute legally “extreme and outrageous” conduct.

Other posts were part of the controversy

The court record contains additional material associated with Lewis that was not among the four statements individually analyzed as the basis of her defamation claim.

One screenshot attributed to Lewis a statement claiming that the Israeli military had intentionally killed Israelis on October 7 under the Hannibal Directive.

Lewis later said she based the claim on reporting by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The court did not determine whether her interpretation of that reporting was accurate.

Another graphic attributed to Lewis stated:

“The Israeli false stories of babies beheaded and women raped was a necessary lie to mobilize Western support for the Palestinian Genocide.”

Susan Lewis

The court record preserved the material, but Nelson did not determine the truth of the underlying claim.

Lewis also shared a graphic defining Zionism as an “inherently violent & terroristic movement” and describing it as an effort to create a “Jewish-supremacist settler colony.”

The evidence indicates that some of this material originated with other social media accounts and was reshared by Lewis rather than necessarily written by her. That distinction is important when describing what Lewis herself said versus what she chose to share publicly.

Valley Catholic did not renew Lewis’s contract

The employment issue is less clear-cut than some of the public commentary surrounding the case.

Valley Catholic notified Lewis on August 21, 2024, the same day StopAntisemitism published its campaign, that her contract would not be renewed.

StopAntisemitism subsequently celebrated her departure.

One of its messages stated: “UPDATE: antisemite Sue Lewis is thankfully no longer teaching at Valley Catholic High School.”

Another statement included in Lewis’s court filings claimed: “Thanks to our advocacy, Sue Lewis has been terminated by her employer.”

StopAntisemitism also subsequently displayed Lewis alongside the word “FIRED.”

But Reznichenko told the court under penalty of perjury: “We do not know why Valley Catholic chose not to renew Plaintiff’s contract.”

The September 25 ruling did not resolve that apparent tension.

In particular, the court did not find that StopAntisemitism had no influence on Valley Catholic’s decision. Lewis’s tortious-interference claim failed because the speech on which it relied was legally protected, rather than because the court determined that there was no causal connection between the campaign and the school’s decision.

The Intercept highlighted the lawsuit months before the ruling

The case received broader attention after The Intercept published a December 2025 article headlined, “StopAntisemitism Takes Credit for Getting Hundreds Fired. A Music Teacher Is Suing.”

The article characterized StopAntisemitism as a “pro-Israel blacklist organization” and focused substantially on Lewis’s experience and criticism of the group’s campaigns.

But The Intercept also acknowledged a major problem facing Lewis’s lawsuit: First Amendment protections.

The article said Lewis’s suit faced “long odds because of First Amendment protections” and discussed previous litigation in which statements published by StopAntisemitism had been treated as protected opinion.

That legal issue ultimately became central to Nelson’s ruling.

StopAntisemitism won, but the case is not necessarily finished

The September 25 decision is a substantial legal victory for StopAntisemitism.

Every cause of action in Lewis’s current complaint failed, and the organization prevailed on its anti-SLAPP motion.

But there is a difference between losing the complaint as currently pleaded and reaching the absolute end of litigation.

Nelson wrote that she was “skeptical that any amendment could cure the identified deficiencies,” but nevertheless gave Lewis 30 days to amend her complaint.

As of the September 26 research cutoff, no amended complaint, notice of appeal, motion for reconsideration or final judgment had appeared on the docket.

The most precise description of the outcome is therefore that StopAntisemitism won dismissal of Susan Lewis’s existing complaint under Oregon’s anti-SLAPP law, with the judge concluding that the challenged statements were constitutionally protected opinions in context.

For now, Lewis has 30 days to decide whether to try again with an amended complaint.