BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The Alabama Educational Television Commission, which is being sued by a former Alabama Public Television executive it fired last month, has called a special meeting for noon Tuesday at APT headquarters in Birmingham.

The commission will discuss hiring legal counsel to represent the AETC in the lawsuit filed by ousted executive director Allan Pizzato, APT public information director Mike McKenzie said this afternoon.

On June 12, the AETC went into executive session and voted 5-2 to dismiss Pizzato, who had been APT's executive director since 2000. The commission also voted to terminate chief financial officer Pauline Howland.

The commission “wanted a general change in direction of the station and a fresh approach,” Ferris Stephens, chairman of the AETC, said after that meeting.

Others associated with APT contend, however, that Pizzato and Howland were fired because they refused to air a controversial history series by evangelical Christian activist David Barton.

Barton's critics, including a handful of Birmingham pastors who gathered at APT headquarters last week, say that Barton's view of American history is inaccurate.

Pizzato's lawsuit claims the AETC and its seven members, claiming they violated the state's open meetings law when they fired him last month and that Stephens is serving on the commission illegally.

Stephens, an assistant state attorney general, was appointed to the educational TV commission in 2010, and is serving on the panel in violation of an Alabama law that prohibits commission members from holding state or federal office, Pizzato’s lawsuit says.

Email Bob Carlton at bcarlton@bhamnews.com