COLLIN COUNTY, Texas — Michael Phillips is a professor, a 15-year veteran of Collin College in Texas, and the area’s preeminent historian of racial politics and right-wing extremism. At the end of the school year, he’ll also be out of a job.
Phillips says he was summoned to a series of meetings with college administrators in January and February where he was informed his contract would not be renewed. Phillips says his termination was ideologically motivated, punishment for repeatedly advancing political views that fell outside the bounds of what management of the public college would tolerate. In this case, Phillips says, this refers to a history professor who spoke out about Confederate monuments, racist mass shooters, and anti-Covid masks.
Collin College disputes that framing. “Our faculty members sign term contracts that — by operation of law — end in May of their…
