Alumni of a Gallaudet University fraternity urged a federal appeals court Friday to revive their defamation lawsuit against the college and the Washington Post over the school president’s reported remarks that the fraternity “has become the face of systemic racism.”

During oral arguments, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit pressed the parties on whether the allegedly defamatory statements concerned the Kappa Gamma chapter generally or were directed at particular members, as is needed to make a defamation claim.