UCLA professor suspended, placed under police protection after denying special treatment to minorities

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Wyatt Eichholz, Alabama Campus Correspondent - Campus Reform


https://i.imgur.com/zGOTioK.jpg

New evidence suggests that the UCLA professor who was suspended after refusing to ease grading requirements on black students was actually expressly told by the diversity chairman not to offer such accommodations.

UCLA lecturer Gordon Klein is now under police protection following his refusal to grant special treatment to minority students in light of the George Floyd protests, the Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday. A spokesman stated that the Malibu Police Department has increased police presence around Klein’s home in response to multiple threats against the professor.

Klein has been suspended for three weeks while the university conducts an investigation of the incident. Campus Reformreported Tuesday that an online petition calling for Klein’s firing had reached more than 20,000 signatures.

An email obtained by the Free Beacon appears to show that Klein was expressly directed not to provide special accommodations. Judson Caskey, the UCLA Anderson School of Management diversity committee chairman, wrote on June 1, “If students ask for accommodations such as assignment delays or exam cancellations, I strongly encourage you to follow the normal procedures (accommodations from the [Center for Accessible Education] office, death/illness in the family, religious observance, etc.)."

Klein maintains that he acted according to this instruction. In an interview with Fox's Laura Ingraham, Klein said, “I got a directive, as did my colleagues, that we should absolutely continue the traditional policy [of] the university, and give the exam as scheduled with only the normal excuses, such as you're in a car accident, you had a death in the family.”

"The best I can figure out, they needed the sacrificial lamb," Klein speculated. "That's what my colleagues have told me. And I was [easy] to sacrifice when they're weighing the principle of standing on equality of treatment for all students irrespective of color versus trying to placate the angry mob. It was easy for them, at least they believe it was easy for them, to simply jettison me."

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, a group that routinely investigates abuses of the First Amendment on college campuses, released a statement Wednesday defending Klein and asserting that UCLA abused its power.

“As a public institution, UCLA is bound by both the First Amendment and the laudable promises of academic freedom it makes to its faculty members,” the statement said. “Given that Klein followed institutional policy when he refused to alter his final exam procedures, this investigation is almost certainly based on the tone or viewpoint of his email, which was — however brusque — protected expression on a matter of profound public interest. Klein must be immediately reinstated, and UCLA’s leaders must make clear that their commitment to academic freedom is stronger than an online mob.”

UCLA’s Anderson School of Management where Klein taught, declined to comment further on the matter.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A University of California, Los Angeles, professor suspended over an email exchange with a student who wanted a final exam canceled or changed because of racial unrest said he’s receiving threats and wants his "reputation restored" after what he calls unfounded allegations of racism.

The controversy began June 2 when Gordon Klein, who teaches accounting and business law, received an email from a student who is not black that suggested the final for Klein's principles of taxation course might be canceled, shortened or graded differently for black students. The student said black classmates were suffering from fear, anxiety and trauma since the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, which galvanized protests nationwide.

Klein replied that the suggestion would be difficult because coronavirus restrictions meant his videotaped lectures were all online and he doesn't know the races of his students in most cases. He added that canceling the final exam wasn't an option because it represented the entire course grade.


Klein said the student, whom he declined to identify, wrote back to apologize, adding he didn't mean to be offensive. The two had known each other from a previous class, and in the student's first email, he'd thanked Klein for providing him and others with “anti-racist resources.”

By the next day, however, Klein's email was trending on Twitter, an online petition demanding he be fired was launched by another student and the dean of UCLA's Anderson School of Management, where Klein has taught for 39 years, was demanding answers.

Some of those responding to the online petition were most offended by his email’s closing remarks, in which he paraphrased Martin Luther King’s famous statement that people should be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character.

Klein, who is white, said he did that as an admirer of King.

His email also questioned how biracial students, if there are any in the class, should be treated, asking, “Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half-black-half Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half?”

He also asked if any white students from Minneapolis might be going through their own trauma, worried they would be seen as racist because of what happened in their city and how they should be handled.

Klein said he meant nothing offensive in any of the remarks.

“I come from a Detroit family where my mother taught in inner-city Detroit, where my father was an accountant for auto workers' unions and where I co-taught an African American studies class at the University of Michigan,” he said. “I abhor the identification of individuals by their race, whether you plan to disfavor them or favor them. I believe in a race-neutral world.”

In a brief statement Wednesday, UCLA said, “The lecturer is on leave from campus and his classes have been reassigned to other faculty.”

The statement added that UCLA is “committed to creating a learning, working and living environment that is free from discrimination, harassment or retaliation” and that the university investigates all allegations involving those issues.

Klein said he plans to defend himself vigorously and has enlisted the aid of the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has accused UCLA of violating his free-speech rights.

“I would like to get my reputation restored, and I will engage in all lawful means from our legal system to ensure that occurs,” he said, adding, “It is the height of ludicrosity for anyone to suggest that a single bone in my body is racist.”

After a brief phone call with his dean the day after the emails, Klein learned he was being placed on involuntary leave until June 24.

Klein holds a law degree, is a certified public accountant and the author of the textbook “Ethics in Accounting: A Decision-Making Approach,” according to his UCLA bio.

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A bit of a big mouth, risky to start quoting Luther king...but still I don't believe he meant any harm

[Griffin]

Why not just bypass classes all together and just give them a diploma. That would save everyone 4 years of grief.

[RBP]

Why not just bypass classes all together and just give them a diploma. That would save everyone 4 years of grief.

And a couple 100k in debt.