A law school professor has withdrawn a lawsuit accusing the legal blog Above the Law of publishing a "viciously racist series of rants" after reporting the professor's arrest for suspicion of soliciting prostitution, writes The National Law Journal.

University of Miami School of Law professor Donald Marvin Jones dropped his lawsuit against the popular US blog on Wednesday (4 November), nine days after he filed it pro se in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

In a blog post on Wednesday (5 November), Above the Law managing editor David Lat wrote that there had been no settlement and that the posts Jones complained about will remain on the site, while also offering to let the professor make his case on the blog.

"I am relieved that Jones came to his senses," the site quoted Above the Law lawyer Marc Randazza as saying. "We were prepared to file a motion to dismiss and a motion for sanctions, and we were confident that both would have been successful. I am consistently unimpressed by academics and anti-speech parties who think that the courts are there for the redress of foolishness, not the legitimate redress of valid legal grievances."

Jones had accused the site of portraying him in a false light, invading his privacy and infringing the university's copyright on his faculty photo. The suit named as defendants Lat, publisher David Minkin and parent company Dead Horse Media, now called Breaking Media LLC. It sought $22m (£13.3m) in damages and removal of the content from the website.

The claims stemmed from a series of posts that the blog ran in October 2007 about a run-in Jones had with Miami police in August that year. Jones – a prominent African-American civil rights activist in Miami – was arrested after he allegedly asked an undercover officer for sex. He insisted he was merely asking for directions.

The charges were later dropped and Jones' arrest record was expunged, but not before Above the Law posted the police incident report and a variety of commentary, including a reader-submitted photo collage depicting Jones conversing with prostitutes. Jones alleged that the collage and much of the commentary was racist and hurt his career.

After news of the lawsuit broke this week, legal experts posted internet commentary casting doubts on the action's merits. University of California at Los Angeles School of Law professor Eugene Volokh called the lawsuit "downright frivolous" on his widely-read legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.

The National Law Journal is a US sister title of Legal Week.