RALEIGH — The N.C. Court of Appeals has upheld a judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a former visiting professor at N.C. State University who said she was frozen out of consideration for a permanent post after making comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The court voted Tuesday to uphold the ruling by N.C. Superior Court Judge Shannon Joseph to throw out the complaint by Terri Ginsberg, who said her constitutional free speech rights were violated by the university.

In her lawsuit, Ginsberg said she had been a leading candidate for a tenure-track position in the school’s film studies department until she gave remarks at a screening of a film called “Ticket to Jerusalem,” thanking the audience for “showing its support for the airing of Palestinian cultural perspectives, especially those which promote Palestinian liberation.”

Her lawsuit said NCSU faculty members had encouraged her to apply for the job before the screening, but that suddenly she found herself out of favor with the hiring committee.

In its ruling, the appeals court said there was no proof of that.

“In fact, the record does not show that plaintiff’s remarks were a decisive factor in the committee’s decision,” Judge Rick Elmore wrote, calling Ginsberg’s argument “mere speculation.”

Instead, the university made its hiring decision only after a lengthy search process for the best available candidate, the judge wrote.

Ginsberg’s lawyer, Rima Kapitan, said her client plans to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.

“For the court to accept without analysis the university’s claims about Dr. Ginsberg’s non-hire when those claims were vigorously disputed not only usurps the role of the jury in the justice system, but renders the N.C. Constitution’s free speech section, which is even stronger than its federal counterpart, meaningless in the employment setting,” Kapitan wrote in a statement.

A message was left with a university spokesman Thursday.