Prof sues UCLA ‘over suspension for not grading black students more leniently’

[The Bobster]

Prof sues UCLA ‘over suspension for not grading black students more leniently’

The dean of UCLA’s business school launched an investigation into Gordon Klein’s actions, put him on leave and tried to terminate him, wrote the professor.

nypost.com

Prof sues UCLA ‘over suspension for not grading black students more leniently’​

By
Rebecca Rosenberg


October 1, 2021 12:07pm
Updated









Prof sues UCLA ‘over suspension for not grading black students more leniently’






A UCLA professor is suing the school for putting him on involuntary leave and allegedly threatening to fire him because he refused to grade black students more leniently than whites in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
“Recently, I was suspended from my job for refusing to treat my black students as lesser than their non-black peers,” wrote Gordon Klein in an op-ed on Bari Weiss’s “Common Sense” newsletter on Substack.
The dean of UCLA’s business school launched an investigation into Klein’s actions, put him on leave and tried to terminate him, wrote the professor, who has taught at the university’s Anderson School of Management for 40 years.
Although Klein was reinstated after three weeks, the highly publicized controversy over the matter devastated his consultancy practice and led him to lose out on lucrative expert witness contracts, which had comprised the bulk of his income, according to the suit.
Alamy Stock Photo
Klein alleges in the suit that he also “suffered severe emotional distress, trauma and physical ailments” as a result of the school’s actions.
The controversy began June 2, 2020 — eight days after Floyd was murdered at the hands of then-Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
Klein was reinstated three weeks after being put on leave.UCLA
An unidentified white student e-mailed Klein and asked for a “no harm” final for black students — meaning poor grades wouldn’t be counted — because of the racially charged “unjust murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd,” Klein said.
The email added, “[It’s] not a joint effort to get finals canceled for non-black students, but rather an ask that you exercise compassion and leniency with black students in our major.”
In the op-ed, Klein wrote that he was “shocked” by the proposal, which he found “deeply patronizing and offensive” to black students.
Klein shot back with a sarcastic reply, which critics slammed as racist.
Antonio Bernardo, the dean of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, allegedly tried to have Klein fired.Courtesy Antonio Bernardo
“Are there any students that may be of mixed parentages, such as half black half-Asian?” the professor wrote in his reply. “What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half?
“Also, do you have any idea if any students are from Minneapolis? I assume that they are probably especially devastated as well. I am thinking that a white student from there might possibly be even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they’re racist even if they are not.”
The request for leniency came from a white student in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
The response, which was posted to social media, ignited a firestorm, and a petition demanding his termination garnered more than 20,000 signatures.
Klein is alleging breach of contract and other claims and is suing the school for unspecified damages “not only to redress the wrongful conduct he has endured but also to protect academic freedom.”
UCLA didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Demonstrators protest the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, another black man who was murdered in 2020, at the Glynn County Courthouse.Sean Rayford/Getty Images

 

[The Bobster]

Armed black militias expected to return to Ahmaud Arbery murder trial

Black Lives Matter 757 called for protesters to return to Glynn County courthouse on Tuesday.

nypost.com

Armed black militias expected to return to Ahmaud Arbery murder trial​

By
Lee Brown


November 23, 2021 9:44am
Updated

Monday's protests saw dozens of people -- many fully masked and carrying assault rifles -- rallying under the banners of groups including the New Black Panther Party and the New Black Liberation Militia. AP

​

Heavily armed black militia groups are expected to return to the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial in Georgia Tuesday — despite their presence sparking last-minute calls for a mistrial just before the case goes to the jury.
Black Lives Matter 757 called for protesters to return on Tuesday to the Glynn County Courthouse, where prosecutors started addressing the court for the last time before jurors start their deliberations on the three white men charged with Arbery’s murder.
The BLM group had been central to protests Monday that saw dozens of people — many fully masked and carrying assault rifles — rallying under the banners of other groups including the New Black Panther Party and the New Black Liberation Militia.
“Revolution has come — time to pick up the gun,” the group chanted, according to videos by Scootercaster, with many in the group giving fist salutes as they also chanted, “Black power will keep us safe.”
A black coffin is wheeled outside the Glynn County Courthouse.AP
They also wheeled a black coffin with a pretend body inside.
“Y’all are in serious trouble because the wrath of karma is coming on America,” said a man with the name badge Cmdr N. Muhammad who called himself the supreme commander of the New Black Liberation Militia.
“We believe in armed self-defense. And that’s the only way we will stop all of the bleeding and killing and dying of us,” warned the man, who also called himself the national prime minister of the New Black Panther.
Two protesters confer outside the courthouse on Monday.AP
The Southern Poverty Law Center has called the group a “virulently racist and antisemitic organization.”
Another leader, Mikhail Muhammad, also warned that they “believe for an eye for an eye” for the three men on trial, calling for “a squad of undercover hitmen to go after these goddamn killers,” the videos show.
The groups’ presence was picked up inside the court, with Kevin Gough, an attorney for one of the defendants, calling for a mistrial, suggesting they were there to intimidate jurors.
Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones (left), along with her attorney Lee Merritt (center), listen to the trial proceedings on Monday.AP
“This is no longer a figurative mob. This is a literal mob,” Gough told Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley.
But the judge denied his request for a mistrial, saying, “Individuals have a right to be outside the courthouse.”
Prosecutors on Tuesday started their final comments in the trial of the three white men charged with killing Arbery, 25, as he ran on Feb. 23, 2020.
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael had grabbed guns and pursued Arbery in a pickup truck, claiming they thought he’d broken into homes.
Ahmaud Arbery was shot while out running on February 23, 2020.Family handout
A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and recorded the video of Travis McMichael opening fire as Arbery threw punches and grabbed for McMichael’s shotgun.
No one was charged in the killing until Bryan’s video leaked and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. All three men are charged with murder and other offenses.
“They made the decision to attack Ahmaud Arbery in their driveways because he was a black man running down the street,” prosecutor Linda Dunikoski told the jury in her initial closing arguments Monday.
Travis McMichael (from left) and his father, Greg, as well as neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., face charges of felony murder.AP
Defense attorneys used their closing arguments Monday to insist that the McMichaels were attempting a legal citizen’s arrest when they set off after Arbery, seeking to detain and question him as a suspected burglar after he was seen running from a nearby home under construction.
Prosecutors said there was no evidence that Arbery had committed crimes in the defendants’ neighborhood.