Ex-assistant AG who criticized gay UM student wants law license back

In this October 2010 photo, students and faculty at the University of Michigan-Flint listen to a speaker during the "rally for respect" supporting 21-year-old Michigan Student Assembly President Chris Armstrong, to show support for the openly gay U-M student leader who was publicly attacked by Michigan's Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shrivell.(Ryan Garza | MLive.com)

ANN ARBOR, MI - A former state assistant attorney general known for his anti-gay writing about a former University of Michigan student body president is appealing the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board's decision to revoke his law license.

Andrew Shirvell, whose disbarment was ordered by the board in March, has a hearing for a petition for review on Wednesday, Oct. 18, before the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board.

In October 2016, the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board said the former state assistant attorney general committed misconduct when he harassed Christopher Armstrong, the university's first openly gay student body president. Shirvell was fired in 2010.

Shirvell believes the panel responsible for revoking his law license back in March was biased against him.

"Given that my case is one of the most politically-charged to have ever come before a Hearing Panel ... I cannot imagine a more biased panel of attorneys who sat in judgment of me," Shirvell said in a news release. "With Donald Trump now in the White House, conservative Christians like me will no longer tolerate
being railroaded by the liberal elite. It is time for the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board to overturn the Hearing Panel's biased determinations and restore my law license."

In 2012, a jury found Shirvell had stalked, defamed and invaded Armstrong's privacy and Shirvell was ordered to pay $4.5 million.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judgment against Shirvell in February 2015.

The court of appeal's decision came with a dismissal of damages awarded for false light invasion of privacy, but he still owed Armstrong $3.5 million stemming from the 2012 jury verdict.

In January 2015, the state of appeals court denied Shirvell's request for unemployment benefits, saying his firing by then-attorney general Mike Cox was justified because Shirvell's Facebook posts and gay-bashing blog negatively impacted the agency's credibility.

At the time, Cox said Shirvell was not fired for exercising his First Amendment rights, but for lying to investigators during a disciplinary hearing and for posting attacks online during work hours.

Shirvell expressed his views as a private citizen, but the court said the First Amendment did not protect him because the state provided evidence that his conduct affected government services.

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