Two former organizers with Turning Point USA at Indiana University want a federal court to reconsider part of a three-year-old free speech lawsuit against the City of Bloomington over its denial of a proposed “All Lives Matter” mural.
Plaintiffs Kyle Reynolds and Tim Wheeler, both IU Bloomington graduates, filed the motion for reconsideration Aug. 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.
The case began in July 2021, when Reynolds emailed IU Capital Planning and Facilities about painting an “All Lives Matter” mural on East Kirkwood Avenue. IU officials referred him to the city, but then-City Attorney Michael Rouker said Bloomington was not accepting individual proposals for art in the public right of way.
Reynolds and the IU Turning Point chapter sued in February 2022, alleging the city engaged in viewpoint discrimination by approving three “Black Lives Matter” murals on city streets while denying the “All Lives Matter” mural.
Judge Sarah Evans Barker granted Reynolds a preliminary injunction, requiring Bloomington to create a formal policy for approving or denying public art in the right of way. The city later adopted rules barring words, letters, numbers, logos, or symbols in semi-permanent or permanent art.
In July 2025, Barker ruled that the previously approved “Black Lives Matter” murals were government speech. She found that the city did not violate Reynolds’ First Amendment rights by allowing those murals while rejecting his proposal. The judge denied both sides’ motions for summary judgment on the remaining viewpoint discrimination claims.
The current motion for reconsideration focuses on the city’s policy for private art in the public right-of-way, which was created under court order after the city denied the mural in 2021. The organization contends that the judge did not recognize the inclusion of “universally recognized symbols” in the proposed mural—specifically, the red and blue lines intended to honor police and fire officers. The suit argues that because the policy bans both words and symbols, the prior ruling overlooked part of the policy and constituted a “manifest error of law.”
The City opposes the motion, arguing that the plaintiffs are introducing a new argument late in litigation. Federal rules allow motions to reconsider only in rare circumstances, typically to correct factual misapprehensions rather than to revisit legal reasoning.
A pretrial conference is scheduled for Nov. 4 in Indianapolis, followed by a bench trial Nov 17.
