Free speech was the center of a trial which ended Wednesday after a jury decided West Point didn't violate any First Amendment rights.

School officials had thrown out eight anti-war protesters from a 2004 Army-Navy basketball game. The protesters claimed they were standing silently in the stands wearing T-shirts that spelled out ?U.S. out of Iraq.?

The protesters sued West Point officials on free-speech grounds, but the jury ultimately sided with the military academy. News 12 Hudson Valley reached out to West Point to get reaction to the verdict, but the school refused to comment.