FREDERICTON – An Oklahoma judge has removed the University of New Brunswick as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by a Pennsylvania state senator with ties to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Sen. Doug Mastriano alleged defamation, racketeering, antitrust and other claims against UNB and almost two dozen academics in 2024 over criticism of his academic research into the American First World War hero Sgt. Alvin York.
The university granted Mastriano, a retired U.S. army colonel, a doctorate for his research in 2013. York was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading U.S. soldiers behind German lines in France during the First World War to disrupt machine gunfire. More than 20 German soldiers were killed and 132 captured. A movie about York’s heroics won Gary Cooper a best actor Academy Award, and the story was memorialized in comic books.
Mastriano’s academic credentials from UNB were called into question in 2022 when The Associated Press reported allegations from scholars asserting that his doctoral dissertation was plagued by factual errors and amateurish archeology. The university then conducted an independent review on how he received his PhD.
Mastriano claimed in his lawsuit that UNB engaged in co-ordinated efforts to destroy his academic reputation and eliminate him as a competitor in First World War scholarship, as well as to interfere with his political campaigns.
Mastriano was a little-known state senator in Pennsylvania until he took an active role in the movement to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat. He attracted headlines when Trump backed him for Pennsylvania governor during the senator’s unsuccessful campaign in 2022.
In the 2024 lawsuit, Mastriano was seeking millions of dollars in damages, claiming criticism of his research cost him income from tourism-related events, as well as book, media, television and movie deals. The senator claimed his book sales were reduced, his publisher stopped possible second editions and that he had been prevented from university job opportunities.
He was also suing former UNB president Paul Mazerolle, vice-president of research David MaGee and professor Drew Rendall, who a few months before the 2022 election for Pennsylvania governor made public Mastriano’s dissertation that was based on his research into York.
Another defendant was James Gregory, who as a University of Oklahoma graduate student and researcher into First World War history and York, filed an academic fraud complaint against Mastriano with UNB.
UNB successfully argued that it was immune from the jurisdiction of the U.S. district court for the western district of Oklahoma because the school is an “organ of a foreign state.”
In a Sept. 1 ruling, District Court Judge Bernard M. Jones II cited UNB’s creation in 1859 for a national purpose, its active supervision by the provincial government and the fact that its staff are considered to be public employees.
Mastriano argued there were numerous exemptions to UNB’s immunity, but the judge disagreed and dismissed the case against the school.
The judge also dismissed personal claims against various academics for lack of jurisdiction, saying all of them are Canadian citizens and that there’s no evidence that any has had any contact with Oklahoma.
Mastriano did not respond to requests for comment. UNB declined to comment on the litigation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2026.
— By Devin Stevens in Halifax, with files from The Associated Press
