UCLA Reinstates Prof Suspended for Refusing to Change Exam or Grades for Black Students
“We’re happy to confirm that Gordon Klein is teaching once again, and hope that in the future UCLA will consider its constitutional obligations before throwing educators out of the classroom”
Back in June, we brought you the story of Professor Gordon Klein, an accounting instructor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business.
Klein was suspended, pending an investigation, for refusing to bend the rules for black students following the death of George Floyd, despite the fact that he was following directions from the school’s diversity chair.
There were threats against Klein which were so credible that he had a police detail posted outside his home.
UCLA has now reinstated Klein, due in part to the efforts of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which got involved in his case.
From the FIRE blog:
VICTORY: UCLA reinstates professor suspended for email on why he wouldn’t change exam, grading for black students
The University of California, Los Angeles, reinstated a professor who was put on mandatory leave for the tone of an email to a student who asked him to alter his grading policies for black students during the protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education called on UCLA in June to reinstate lecturer Gordon Klein, citing the university’s academic freedom promises, as well as its obligations under the First Amendment. Klein faced public backlash for his email, including a petition for his firing signed by more than 20,000 people.
“We’re happy to confirm that Gordon Klein is teaching once again, and hope that in the future UCLA will consider its constitutional obligations before throwing educators out of the classroom,” said Katlyn Patton, author of FIRE’s June 10 letter to UCLA. “UCLA investigated his ‘tone’ in an attempt to quell public backlash. But regardless of how many people demand his firing, UCLA cannot justify using that anger to erode Gordon’s rights.”
An interesting development in this story is that a petition was launched in defense of Klein that received over 75,000 signatures, demanding Klein’s reinstatement and an apology from the school.
From Change.org:
Justice for UCLA Professor Gordon Klein #TitleVI
UCLA Andersen School of Management Professor Gordon Klein was placed on leave after defending equality and promoting Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream protesters are calling for him being fired. Take a stand for Gordon Klein, for equality, for human rights.
The Goal of this petition is to have UCLA immediately allow Prof. Klein to be reinstated if he wishes, and we demand an apology both privately, directly to Gordon Klein and publicly to acknowledge this issue.
The student’s request simultaneously spread stereotypes and promoted both microaggressions and macroaggressions that black, African-American, and other minorities are unable to be graded equally as other races, colors, and origins because of lesser intelligence of any type. This is just not true and should not be supported. Where are the disciplinary actions on the students who believe and say these ridiculous accusations that all people are not equal?
Congratulations to Professor Klein on his reinstatement, and to anyone who helped make this happen.
People who believe in academic freedom, freedom of speech, and real justice must stand together to denounce cancel culture and groupthink in higher education.
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Comments
One small victory for Humankind
We are going to need ALOT of these victories and a HUGE victory come 11/03/2020
Yes considering that all education including higher education is now nothing but a huge paper mail!
MILL
To mitigate progress… baby steps.
They’re probably fearing Trump’s re-election when he is expected to act on cutting funding for colleges and universities squelching freedom of speech.
Could we now toss the indignant students out? If only the “temperature” of higher education made snowflakes melt away. These institutions were to be a crucible, not a deep freeze.
I Estimate 75% of people should not be in higher education.
They have just been conned!
Better to fire the “woke” administrators who are enabling all this nonsense.
This is a great start. Now the cry-bullies should be kicked out of school; they obviously don’t have any inkling why they’re there.
How many of the crybullies are taking real majors? I’d guess virtually none.
As a follow up Legal Insurection should ask (or file a public records request) whether black students in Prof. Klein’s class were allowed to “skip the final exam” by the substitute professor. I never figured out whether the Dean pulled Klein from the front line and had someone else enforce the same official policies without writing provocative emails. If that was the case, it many have been the best way to play that situation. Why should one professor take all the heat for requiring the black students to take their final exams? It should be a broad-based policy decision that is applied fairly and consistently. We don’t know what the administrators were planning and how their plans changed when Prof. Klein’s plight became national news.
It has always seemed to me that race-basedpolicies are grounded on the assumption that blacks lack the intelligence of other races. Disgusting!
I did okay with chemical thermodynamics, why can’t I balance my checkbook?
Accounting is based on numbers and their relationships with each other and on how that numbers are presented in financial statements. Certainly not as math-intensive as the hard sciences, but it does require a certain comfort level with numbers, a factor which acts as a filter for those who would choose accounting as a major.
Which caused me to wonder when this story happened earlier this year.
Not all accounting majors go on to become CPAs; many do. Generally speaking blacks don’t choose number-based majors whether finance, insurance, accounting, or STEM. Precision, accuracy really stand for something in these areas, unlike, oh, lets say, those “studies” programs. But here we had several blacks who did choose this accounting course, suggesting that they were more serious-minded students, meaning they realized what was in store.
That they acted as SJ warriors surprised me.
You do know math has been deemed racist, right? :-}}
They were afraid of Joe Biden telling them that they weren’t black.
Since Professor Klein appears to be a solitary case, is it safe to think that there are many more professors who did adjust grades to allow students to participate in the riots, excuse me- peaceful protests, and still get passing grades?
Were I a potential employer of one of these students, especially in my accounting department, I would want to know if they really passed the course due to their knowledge and not because of extra SJW credit. Since it appears many of these students are readily identifiable would it be practical, rather than racist, to begin sorting on appearance?
Sometimes even these supposedly “top line” students do not think these things all the way through.
If I was an accounting department head, I would have a list of schools at my desk who participated in the SJW crap. If a candidate resume for an accounting job crossed my desk, I would check their educational references for one of those schools and reject that applicant out of hand. For one, since math is racist, I would be wary that the candidate can’t do their job correctly, and 2nd, if I had to try to fire them, they would raise cain about being discriminated against for their lack of knowledge. Either way, it would be a risk to hire them.
I’d show them a “pair of aces” and walk.
The student’s request simultaneously spread stereotypes and promoted both microaggressions and macroaggressions that black, African-American, and other minorities are unable to be graded equally as other races, colors, and origins because of lesser intelligence of any type.
While this is indeed part of the “systemic racism” of the modern Left, it does not seem to be the issue in this case.
The original question was about relaxing academic requirements for black students . . . but not because of a theory that they’re unable to learn the material like everybody else, rather that they should be able to use the excitement over Floyd’s death as an excuse to spend their study time protesting and looting instead.
The professor rejected this absurd request, and that rejection doesn’t seem to have been an issue, perhaps because it’s just plain reasonable. The objection was more roundabout, involving his “tone”. I don’t know what that “tone” was and am not sufficiently motivated to investigate.
Unless the claim that blacks are incapable of handling the material like anybody else was explicitly made in the student’s original request, it’s misleading to put this theory—whether credible or not—into this story.
It does seem, however, to indicate that they are unable or unwilling to carry on their assigned tasks and not be distracted by something that occurred a couple thousand miles away to someone they did not know existed until it happened.
Are they going to abandon their job for a month, but demand to be paid nonetheless, when there is an auto accident in the neighboring town? They’re in college, its about time they grew up.
“Tone.” You cannot “prove” tone, especially because tone is in eye or ear of the “hearer.”
Why should sub-Saharans get to skip an exam just because another sub-Saharan, a half a continent away, overdosed on illegal drugs?
Sounds like the ACLU is ignoring these blatant violations of civil liberties on campuses. Perhaps this represents false and misleading advertising for profit. I know! Let’s more accurately rename them the AnarchIst Communist Lascivious Union.
One can certainly count this as a win, but one shouldn’t be celebrating it as a win. Mere reestablishment of the status quo after great effort and expense is not a win. When would be a win is a hefty financial settlement from the administration, and a big win would be expulsion of the students who signed the original extortion letter.
So Prof. Klein was reinstated by a “vote” of 20,000 ‘against’ and 75,000 ‘for’?? I would be willing to guarantee that most of 20,000 who signed that petition were not affiliated with UCLA in any way—this is assuming that most of them even exist. In addition to the PC nonsense surrounding this, I am worried that somebody’s job could depend upon a popularity contest created by people who never met him, and who are in no position to judge his professional competence. Such ad hominem ‘twits’ should not even be allowed access to a public platform!