(The Center Square) – The Arizona Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case about whether a university professor has legal standing to sue his employer after being forced to take diversity, equity and inclusion training courses.
Arizona’s highest court will hear oral arguments in Anderson v. Arizona Board of Regents on Sept. 1. Arizona State University professor Owen Anderson, who teaches philosophy and religious studies, sued the Arizona Board of Regents in 2024 over being required to complete DEI training.
Anderson previously told The Center Square that the DEI training he had to take singled out white skin “as something that could be morally judged” and had “anti-Christian rhetoric.”
Jon Riches, an attorney for the Goldwater Institute who is working on the case, told The Center Square on Tuesday that the Arizona Board of Regents sought to dismiss Anderson’s lawsuit after he filed it, saying he did not have any legal basis to bring it.
The trial court ruled against the board, but an appeals court reversed that ruling in 2025, he added. The Goldwater Institute, based in Phoenix, filed its petition with the state Supreme Court in February.
Anderson said he is “very excited and happy” that the Arizona Supreme Court announced it will hear his case.
The case is important for employees’ rights, the professor said.
“What’s at stake right now is that if I don’t have any standing, this means that every ASU employee loses standing going forward. ASU is trying to position itself to be untouchable legally by any of its employees,” he noted.
The professor said he has told his colleagues that if he loses, they would not be able to sue the university in the future if they were required to take “Trump-training” courses.
If the Arizona Supreme Court rules against Anderson in the case, it will have “devastating consequences,” according to Riches. He added that it would prevent state workers from having any cause of action.
“We are hopeful the court will clarify that people like Anderson can vindicate their rights in court and have cause of action to challenge,” Riches noted.
If the Arizona Supreme Court rules in favor of Anderson, Riches said Anderson’s legal case would return to the trial court to determine whether ASU violated state law by requiring the professor to undergo the training.
“State law is very clear that a public university in Arizona can’t require its employees to undergo discriminatory training, yet ASU was requiring just that,” Riches said.
“We think it’s pretty clear it does,” he added. “This training was pretty abysmal and included all sorts of discriminatory language.”
Anderson told The Center Square that ASU “should not be allowed to require training that engages in moral blame by saying that people can be morally assessed based on skin color.”
“That sentence should be obvious to everybody, but the universities have been getting away with it if the skin color is white,” he said.
“Those days need to end as soon as possible,” the professor noted.
The Center Square reached out to ASU, but did not hear back before press time.
