In 2019, the University of North Texas (UNT) terminated the employment of Nathaniel Hiers, a math professor, because he wrote a joke about microaggressions on a chalkboard in the faculty lounge. (Poking fun at leftist obsessions is disallowed!)
Hiers, ably assisted by the legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), sued the university. It should have been obvious that it was a slam-dunk case for Hiers, since the precedents are perfectly clear, but the university decided to defend against the suit.
That was a bad call. The university has just settled, agreeing to pay Hiers $165,000 in damages and legal fees. Here is the release from ADF.
This case ought to make the law even clearer to university zealots: You can’t punish faculty members because of their views. If only the damages had to be paid by the responsible officials (maybe someone in the Texas legislature will draft a bill to take care of that). As it is, the UNT bigwigs accomplished their goal of ridding themselves of a non-woke math professor at no personal cost.