The North Carolina Governor’s School is a public institution catering to top students in the state. But faculty members who might have thought they had any academic freedom to discuss controversial topics should think twice. A veteran English professor, David Phillips, has been fired because he dared to raise objections to the “diversity” ideology that has saturated almost every public institution.

Fortunately for him (and the rest of us), we still have a semblance of the rule of law. Alliance Defending Freedom has filed suit on his behalf against the state’s Department of Public Instruction. You can read the complaint here.

The precedents are quite clear: Public institutions can’t retaliate against faculty members for saying politically incorrect things. North Carolina taxpayers will now have to pick up the costs of fighting the suit (unless the department sees the handwriting on the wall and decides to reinstate Phillips), and pay for the damage done by the ideologues running the school.