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  Judge Denver Dillard, in an order filed in Johnson County District Court on Friday, said his rejection last month of Gilchrist’s request to reclaim her job should not have been interpreted as the final word in the case.

  Gilchrist’s attorney, Pat Ingram of Iowa City, said Gilchrist will seek a jury trial. Gilchrist, who supervised the lab for 11 years, was fired in October after ignoring repeated warnings from university administrators to quit lobbying state lawmakers for additional funding for a $36 million facility now under construction.

  Gilchrist contended her firing violated Iowa’s whistleblower statute, but Dillard disagreed in a Feb. 16 ruling.

  The Attorney General’s Office, which represented University of Iowa officials in the case, said at the time that it believed the case was over except for a possible appeal. But Dillard’s order on Friday, which was actually a denial of Gilchrist’s request to amend his Feb. 16 ruling, said the court was ‘‘not responsible for self created confusion on the part of either party’’ and ‘‘nothing in the court’s decision should have been interpreted by anyone to be a final determination or decision in this case."