Prof defends music theory against white supremacist claims, then gets demoted. Now, he's suing.

The university's action stems from an incident in November 2019 in which Philip Ewell, a professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York delivered a speech entitled “Music Theory’s White Racial Frame” at the Society for Music Theory (SMT). Ewell then published a paper based on this talk, in which he describes himself as “a Black person - the only associate professor who self-identified as such in the 2018 SMT demographic report - but … a practitioner of what I call ‘white music theory.’”

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Shortly after Ewell published his paper, Jackson and the editorial staff of the journal he co-founded, the Journal of Schenkerian Studies at UNT, created a plan to host a symposium in response to Ewell’s address and publication. The journal called on members of the Society for Music to write papers in response to this topic. The submissions were published on July 24, 2020, and included a variety of views including 15 pieces that were favorable toward Ewell, and several others that were critical.

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Ewell claimed, in his paper, that Schenkerians and their methodology have deterred Black people from entering the musical theory field. However, Jackson disagreed on this point, arguing that “a fundamental reason for the paucity of African American women and men in the field of music theory is that few grow up in homes where classical music is profoundly valued, and therefore they lack the necessary background.”

The publishing of the symposium led to Ewell's supporters calling on UNT to censor and fire Jackson. The chair of the music theory department at the University of Michigan, one school at which the Society of Music Theory's leaders work, circulated emails to staff encouraging their support.

Five days after the symposium, according to the lawsuit, the SMT Executive Board issued a letter of condemnation stating that “the conception and execution of this symposium failed to meet the ethical, professional, and scholarly standards of our discipline. Some contributions violate our Society’s policies on harassment and ethics."