The University of Colorado has agreed to allow history professor Patty Limerick ownership of her scholarly works after she sued the university for access to them in May.

The settlement agreement, reached on Tuesday, establishes that the university will allow Limerick access to all of her digital and physical scholarly work and writings she’s created during her career at CU Boulder.

“I’m really happy I’m restored to what I think I should have and what I had for 40 years,” Limerick said.

The university also agreed to pay $50,000 in attorney fees, withdraw its claim that the university owns her work and issue the following statement upon the lawsuit’s dismissal:

“The University of Colorado Boulder and Professor Patty Limerick have agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Professor Limerick in 2024,” CU Boulder spokesperson Nicole Mueksch wrote in an email. “Prof. Limerick is and will continue to be a valued tenured faculty member of the University of Colorado Boulder. The University supports Professor Limerick’s current and future academic works, including Applied History Initiative, a program focused on educating and elevating the work of society’s young historians.”

Limerick lost access to her scholarly works after she was fired from her position as the director of the Center of the American West on Sept. 23, 2022. She filed a lawsuit against CU in 2024 after she could not access her work, which included reports, articles, pictures, speeches, books, blog posts and creative non-fiction she produced dating back to 1968.

The university initially claimed Limerick’s work was university property and not her own because she used “substantial university resources” to produce them. In the settlement agreement, the university agreed not to assert that claim moving forward.

Limerick said the outcome is “remarkable.”

“It’s 180 degrees different than what I’ve been getting for the last couple of years,” she said.

She’s happy there was no nondisclosure agreement or restriction on her free speech and that the university recanted its claim to her work. And, she’s grateful for the university’s statement in support of her and the $50,000 payment.

“They put in some money and didn’t have to do it, which is kind of amazing,” Limerick said.

Limerick’s attorney Stan Garnett said he’d never filed or seen a case like this in his 43 years of being a lawyer.

“It was a very successful result,” Garnett said. “Patty was pleased and we were pleased to help her take possession of her works.”

Limerick wanted access to her work so she can write a book about her experiences as a university professor and the state of higher education today. She considers herself to be a nonconformist and, to reflect that, is considering titling her book “Out of order: Adventures of an academic renegade.”

“The reason the university was claiming ownership to Patty’s work is they were afraid that she would take that work and set up a competing Center of the American West somewhere else,” Garnett said. “Which she would have every right to do because it’s her work.”

Limerick said she’s still worried for her fellow professors who think it’s a given that they own their writings and work.

“I do feel like I have to be forthright to other faculty members because it never occurred to me they could claim something that is mine,” she said, adding, “I hope it will be a lesson to keep other people from going through this. Whoever is the decision maker at the university I hope is saying, ‘We got that lesson, and we’re not gonna do that to anybody else.’”