The federal defamation lawsuit against The New York Times brought by University of Alabama basketball player Kai Spears will proceed, a judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Scott Coogler, in a 21-page order, granted the Times’ motion to dismiss Spears’ allegations that the newspaper acted with malice in intentionally portraying him in a false light, but denied the newspaper’s motion to dismiss the defamation portion of the suit.

In March, the Times reported that Spears, a walk-on, was in the car with former UA basketball standout Brandon Miller, who is now with the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, when he returned a gun to then-player Darius Miles. That gun was then used in the fatal shooting of Birmingham mother Jamea Harris.

Miles and longtime friend Michael Davis are charged with capital murder in the death of Harris.

The Times initially reported that Spears was the “unidentified passenger” in the car with Miller who had received a request by Miles to bring him his gun, which was in the backseat of Miller’s car. The newspaper attributed that information to a confidential source.

That was changed, however, when Spears’ lawsuit on June 2 made the first public claim that it was team manager Cooper Lee in the car, not Spears— which Lee later confirmed to The Times.

Spears originally requested The Times to retract the story after its publishing before taking legal action. “I had multiple threats from like Twitter and Instagram, people telling me to kill myself, people telling me I’m a murderer, we’re a team full of murderers. And they’re just kind of putting this false narrative out … I mean, I did nothing wrong,” Spears told The Washington Post in June.

The suit, filed in the Northern District of Alabama, states Spears is seeking upwards of $75,000 in damages due to emotional and physical distress.

The Times stood by its reporting even after Spears’ father and Alabama’s athletic director Greg Byrne refuted the initial report.

In June, the Times issued this correction:

“The original version of this article, published March 15, misidentified the person who was in the car with Brandon Miller when the shooting occurred.

“Based on information from a person familiar with the case, the article erroneously identified that person as Kai Spears, a freshman basketball player. After the article was initially published, Alabama’s athletic director and Spears’s father denied that Spears was present. The Times included those responses and reviewed its reporting, but did not conclude that any other change to the article was warranted at that time.

“On Wednesday, Spears filed a defamation suit against The Times that included new details about the incident. Based on that information, editors assigned further reporting, which determined that the other person at the scene was not Spears but Cooper Lee, a student manager for the team. The Times regrets the error in the initial report.

“This article has been revised to remove the erroneous information.”

In his order, Coogler noted that Spears contends the Times is liable for defamation for failing to use reasonable care in publishing and disseminating the false statements regarding his involvement in the shooting.

Spears also claimed the publication cast him in a false light by stating he was present at a murder scene and by implying he was involved in criminal activity.

Coogler said, “out of an abundance of caution,” he was giving Spears 21 days to amend his complaint to “plausibly state a false light claim, if he can do so in good faith.”