He Called an Association a ‘Woke Joke.’ He Lost His Retaliation Claim.

July 10, 2023 1 min read

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Note: This is another perspective on ‘Porter v. Board of Trustees of North Carolina State University.’

Excerpt: A divided federal appeals court has ruled against a professor who alleged North Carolina State University retaliated against him for three instances of him speaking his mind.

Those were: pushing back on adding a diversity question to student course evaluations, criticizing a colleague department-wide regarding an Inside Higher Ed article and writing a blog post titled “ASHE Has Become a Woke Joke.” In the 2-1 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed the lawsuit Porter filed against the university and a few current and former employees there. Porter argued that he “has been effectively siloed into a program area of study that is drained of students and resources,” the majority opinion said.

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