US professor claims he was fired for criticizing ‘critical race theory’

David Phillips said in a lawsuit that he had received ‘open hostility’ for speaking out against the ‘racially divisive ideology’

A North Carolina professor has sued a high school for allegedly firing him due to his stance on “critical race theory.” The professor claimed that he was verbally attacked after questioning the liberal ideology in a series of seminars.

In a suit filed on Friday, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative advocacy group, stated that Phillips was fired from his teaching post at the Governor’s School of North Carolina over three summer seminars in which he discussed concepts from critical theory, as well as “the increasing ideological bias and lack of viewpoint diversity in higher education.”

Phillips was given no explanation for the firing, the suit continued, describing how prior to hosting these seminars, he was considered a “wonderful teacher” by students.

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However, when he began questioning critical race theory, he was met with a wave of “open hostility” by students and staff, who attacked his “whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, and Christianity.” Despite Phillips staying behind after class to discuss his opposition to concepts of “privilege,” the suit alleges that the professor was sacked with no opportunity to appeal because the staff “disagreed with his views.”

Critical race theory has existed in academia since the 1980s, and is now taught in varying forms in US schools, universities, workplaces, and government departments. Described broadly, it views people’s relative “privilege” as defined by their skin color, gender, sexuality and other immutable characteristics. Its adherents argue that white males sit atop this hierarchy and – even if unknown to themselves – perpetuate “white supremacy.”

Opponents of critical race theory say that it encourages anti-white discrimination. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis banned critical race theory from Florida schools last June, and 17 other states have passed legislation to restrict its teaching, according to a report by Education Week.