SLIPPERY ROCK — A Butler County judge has ruled that the lawsuit of a former Slippery Rock University supervisor who is suing the school for violating his civil rights and the government’s whistle-blower protection law can continue.

The ruling by Judge Marilyn Horan means the civil suit brought by Timothy J. Carney will go to a jury trial.

Attorney James B. Lieber, Carney’s lawyer, said he expects the case to begin jury selection before the end of the year, though no trial date has yet been set in the case, which includes allegations by Carney that SRU administrators violated his free speech rights.

Carney filed the lawsuit in early 2012, alleging that two SRU employees — Scott Albert, the director of facilities, and Robert Smith, the former president — engaged in age discrimination against him at the university, denied him a “pretermination hearing” after firing him, and fired him in retaliation for exposing irresponsible spending at SRU — a firing Carney claims violated the government’s whistle-blower act, which gives certain protections to employees who expose wrongdoing by their employers.

According to the suit, Carney was hired in 1985 and was SRU’s director of maintenance services and project manager in 2011, when he was fired, in what Carney claims was retaliation for reporting what he says was irresponsible expenses on overseas travel and office decor for Smith, as well as for “public beautification projects” at SRU.

In the suit Carney calls the spending “misuse of funds” and says it exposed the university to “financial vulnerability.”

The suit also claims that Carney’s firing followed a pattern of age discrimination carried out by Albert, who would “routinely assign Carney unrealistic job goals, and publicly berate,” him in front of other employees before ultimately firing him.

He is in his 50s.

Carney’s suit also claims that SRU administrators denied him a “pretermination hearing” before his firing in 2011.

Since it was filed, Carney’s lawsuit has been the subject of years of legal wrangling between Leiber and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, which represents SRU.

The most recent filing came earlier this year, when Senior Deputy Attorney General Thomas Donahoe Jr. filed a motion requesting a summary judgment to dismiss Carney’s suit.

Oral arguments on the motion were June 28, and in a ruling issued July 1 Judge Horan rejected those arguments and denied the state’s motion to dismiss the suit.

“These issues have not been litigated or decided ... As such, this claim can proceed before this court,” Horan wrote.

Donahoe could not be reached for comment.