FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 20, 2022
Contact: Laura Macklem
[email protected]
NC VALUES SHOWS SUPPORT FOR LAWSUIT CHALLENGING POLITICALLY MOTIVATED TERMINATION AT NC GOVERNOR’S SCHOOL
Executive Director of NC Values Coalition Tami Fitzgerald made a statement today supporting the Alliance for Defending Freedom lawsuit on behalf of Dr. David Phillips, a well-respected English professor who has spent eight summers teaching at the Governor’s School, a residential summer program for North Carolina’s most talented rising high-school seniors.
“According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, Dr. Phillips was terminated after presenting three voluntary seminars ‘critiquing critical theory and the increasing bias and lack of viewpoint diversity in higher education.’ Critical theory, an ideology that views everyone and everything through the lens of characteristics like race, sex, and religion, labels people as perpetual oppressors or victims based on group membership alone. Dr. Phillips was fired mid-semester without explanation. Although Dr. Phillips was a long-time, well-respected professor at the North Carolina Governor’s School, he was wrongfully terminated after expressing his viewpoint about Critical Race Theory. Our taxpayer funded educational institutions should be teaching students how to think critically and promoting a diversity of viewpoints, instead of censoring ideas competing with far-left ideology. I strongly support ADF’s challenge to Dr. Phillips’ termination and hope justice is served for Dr. Phillips. If proven correct, the school should be brought to task not only for teaching Critical Race Theory but for also punishing those who challenge it.”
Case Name: Phillips v. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
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