Lawsuit Filed After North Carolina Professor Fired for Criticizing Critical Race Theory in Class

A screenshot of North Carolina Governor’s School. Google Maps

A former professor from the North Carolina Governor’s School has filed a lawsuit against the institution after getting fired for speaking about the harms of Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Dr. David Phillips, who has spent eight summers teaching at the school, has spoken out against the increasing adoption of CRT in the institution.

In June 2021, Philips delivered three optional seminars critiquing CRT and highlighting the lack of viewpoint diversity in higher education. He was fired by officials in mid-session, without any explanation.

The lawsuit was filed on Phillips’ behalf by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a nonprofit committed to protecting free speech. ADF Senior Counsel Hal Frampton slammed the school for ending Philips’ employment.

“In an academic environment committed to exploring a wide range of differing viewpoints, as the Governor’s School claims to be, no teacher should be fired for offering a reasoned critique of critical theory. But that’s what happened to Dr. Phillips,” Frampton said, according to an ADF post explaining the case.

“By firing him, the Governor’s School violated his constitutional right to free speech and unlawfully retaliated against him for deviating from the Governor’s School’s ideological orthodoxy.”

Racist Ideology

According to the lawsuit, CRT propaganda embraced by the school classified being white, cisgender, heterosexual, male, and/or Christian as privileged characteristics. Philips observed that CRT was being applied to all aspects of school life, from its curriculum to the selection of students and how students were treated.

CRT categorizes the population into groups of oppressors and oppressed. Whites are generally classified as the oppressors while people of other races and identities are grouped as the oppressed, demonizing a section of society. The ideology also extends the oppressor-oppressed dynamics into other spheres of life like sex and religion.

At the school, students were taught that: (a) racism was about anything that perpetuates unequal distribution of resources, privilege, and power between whites and people of color, (b) racism can only be committed by white people, (c) any unequal outcome can be assumed to the result of systemic racism, and (d) that gender is non-binary and exists on a spectrum.

Someone who is white, heterosexual, male, cisgender, Christian, able-bodied, and financially stable was classified as the “Prince of Privilege.” Students with “privileged” characteristics were encouraged to identify and confess their privilege to teachers and peers.

From 2015, Philips began hearing complaints from “privileged” students that they were being discriminated against, harassed, and silenced. When such students attempted to speak in classes, they were told their perspectives were unwelcome and were shut down.

Students with conservative views, particularly conservative Christian viewpoints, were often dismissed by instructors. And with the approval of these instructors, other students would “pile on in chastising” the student for his or her views.

Expulsion

The three seminars Phillips conducted in 2021 discussed a social psychology critique of some of the concepts from critical theory, the rising ideological bias in higher education, and understanding speech through the lens of speech-act theory.

After his lectures, certain staff members and students would react with hostility, raising questions about race, sex, religion, and gender. Philips would answer these questions, even offering to meet students later to give a more thorough explanation.

A day after his third optional seminar, the school fired him. Not only did they not provide any explanation for the expulsion, they informed him that there would be no appeal or any other recourse. Prior to the three lectures, Philips had always received positive reviews for his performance with no negative comments.

In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a North Carolina Department of Public Instruction said: “Mr. Phillips was an employee of Governor’s School during summer 2021. The Department of Public Instruction maintains that it fully complied with all legal requirements. However, as this is a personnel matter, no additional information can be shared at this time.”

A study published in October showed that CRT concepts were being taught in American schools despite denials from individuals and groups. Among the 18–20-year-olds who responded to the survey, 62 percent reported that they were taught “America is a systematically racist country” either in class or by an adult at school.