Supreme Court will not hear case of NC prof who alleges university retaliated for opposing DEI
The Supreme Court decided not to hear a North Carolina State University professor's case who alleged that his school retaliated against him for opposing several diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
The Supreme Court decided not to hear a North Carolina State University professor’s case who alleged that his school retaliated against him for opposing several diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Higher Education Professor Stephen Porter alleged that administrators at North Carolina State University removed him from a Ph.D. program because of previous statements that he made, according to Inside Higher Ed.
Lawyers for the professor wrote in a Supreme Court petition that Porter’s case is a free speech issue.
“Resolving the uncertainty around the scope of public university professors’ free speech rights is essential to ensuring that American academic institutions are not ruled by an ideological orthodoxy that ruthlessly eliminates dissent from its ranks,” the petition states. “Public university professors who question the primacy of so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (‘DEI’) constantly find themselves subject to retaliation that must have a remedy at law.”
His lawyers also warned that the case has a potential to have far-reaching impacts.
“If this retaliation goes unchecked, public universities will rapidly lose any semblance of ideological diversity and will be unable to function as the quintessential marketplace of ideas that is ‘one of the vital centers for the Nation’s intellectual life,’” Porter’s lawyers wrote in the petition.
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The Supreme Court’s decision comes after the the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2023 ruled against him in a 2-to-1 decision.
