Colorado Newsline: The Colorado National Guard on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by a Colorado captain who alleges his superiors violated his First Amendment rights to free speech, assembly and the press. 

Capt. Alan Kennedy, a 37-year-old judge advocate, sued several of the Colorado National Guard’s top commanders and generals in March after they reprimanded him in 2020 for participating in a Black Lives Matter protest, and again after he wrote an op-ed in Newsline criticizing them for investigating his participation in the protest.

Kennedy’s lawsuit, filed in the federal district court in Denver, asked the judge to declare that his commanders violated his constitutional rights. Kennedy also wants the judge to deem unconstitutional the Department of Defense policy under which he was punished.

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