A North Carolina Supreme Court justice who sued the state’s ethics commission over its probe into comments she made about lack of diversity cannot raise her First Amendment challenge in federal court, the body told a U.S. district judge last week.

In a filing on Oct. 6, the North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission said Justice Anita Earls’ complaint must be dismissed under U.S. Supreme Court precedent that requires federal courts to abstain from lawsuits that target the constitutionality of a pending state proceeding.