in the military, disobeying orders from a superior can be grounds for a court martial
Discussion
also "court martial" just means an internal adjudication by officers trained in law
Military laws are outside my area of expertise for sure but I assume letting your potentially best selling book be pulled from existence without too much of a fuss helped his case.
Discussion behind closed doors about his thesis could score even more points.
Implementing softwar could potentially help even more.