Here is what I wrote in part about this upsetting tale when it occurred four years ago…
“UCLA accounting professor Gordon Klein was investigated, suspended and publicly rebuked after he refused to exempt black students from his final exam by sending a tart response to an email requesting special leniency for black students in the wake of the George Floyd episode. Following Floyd’s demise, Klein received a student email, reading,
“The unjust murders of Amhaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, the life-threatening actions of Amy Cooper, and the violent conduct of the UCPD in our own neighborhood have led to fear and anxiety which is further compounded by the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on the Black community. As we approach finals week, we recognize that these conditions will place Black students at an unfair academic disadvantage due to traumatic circumstances out of their control. We implore you to mandate that our final exam is structured as no harm, where they will only benefit students’ grades if taken. In addition, we urgently request shortened exams and extended deadlines for final assignments and projects. This is 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.”
[Added: The student also asked Klein to give high grades to black students, because… they were black. DEI, you know.]
The professor replied, “Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota. Do you know the names of the classmates that are black? How can I identify them since we’ve been having online classes only? Are there any students 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? Also, do you have any idea if any students are from Minneapolis? I assume that they probably are 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. My TA is from Minneapolis, so if you don’t know, I can probably ask her. Can you guide me on how I should achieve a “no-harm” outcome since our sole course grade is from a final exam only? One last thing strikes me: Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the “color of their skin.” Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK’s admonition?”
“…The recipient of Klein’s slapdown circulated the reply to the campus, as was preordained, and thousands signed a petition demanding that Klein be fired for his “extremely insensitive, dismissive, and woefully racist response” and “blatant lack of empathy and unwillingness to accommodate his students.” After UCLA launched the obligatory investigation, it issued a statement that ‘We apologize to the student who received it and to all those who have been as upset and offended by it as we are ourselves.’ Then it extended all exams, because the accidental death of a petty hood due to a single brutal cop in Minnesota is such an obvious justification for postponing tests at UCLA. “Klein is now suing, while UCLA insists that the investigation and suspension were not due to his refusal to give preferential grading to black students, but because of the “tone” of Klein’s email. The tone may have been harsh, but it was also warranted. The request made no sense, and demanded deconstruction. That kind of tough language may not be every teacher’s style, or even the approved style in the Era of Weenies, but academic freedom should guarantee professors wide discretion to teach as they choose.”
Well, this goes to show what I know. This month Santa Monica Superior Court Judge H. Jay Ford ruled against Klein and for UCLA on all three causes of action in Klein’s lawsuit demanding more than $13 million in damages for breach of contract, false light, and negligent interference with prospective earnings.
Klein’s lawyers filed an objection to the entirety of the tentative ruling. The judge will review his decision at a hearing in January. In his 30-page ruling, Ford held that UCLA had the contractual right to place Klein on administrative leave while it investigated the controversy surrounding Klein’s email. “UCLA had the right to determine what public response was necessary to address and mitigate the immediate [and] extraordinary public outrage toward both Klein and UCLA arising from the public disclosure of Klein’s email,” Ford wrote.
Immediate, extraordinary, and stupid. Klein’s response was a lot more diplomatic than mine would have been. I probably would have begun with “grow up.” No investigation should have been necessary to determine that the “controversy” over a professor’s completely correct and appropriate response to dumb request was contrived and indefensible. How was Klein’s email racist, unless it is racist to insist that black students be held to the same rules and standards as everyone else?
Oh. Right. That is racist.
It is fascinating to know that the George Floyd Ethics Train Wreck is still running, at least in California. Oh…any theories why this story has received virtually no coverage in the mainstream media?
Ethics Alarms 
The Daily Mail ran a story about this decision (which seems to have disappeared) and quoted from it extensively. The judge absolutely creamed the plaintiff. It will have to be appealed, but I doubt the California appellate courts will overturn the decision.
probbaly the best course of action for any professor in Klein’s position would be to ignore the request and any follow-ups. Stay silent, say nothing and nobody can accuse you of anything…..
If the professor had replied with one single word, “No”, the twisted fallout from the snowflakes would have been exactly the same. The snowflaking woke student intentionally setup the professor. Any worded reply to the absurd email request other than “that sounds like a wonderful idea” would have been exploited by the DEI woke wackos to publicly smear the professor. I’m guessing if the professor had ignored the email request and not replied at all, the snowflakes would have found some way to exploit that too. In my opinion; it was basically a lose-lose situation for the professor and he chose to teach another lesson by appropriately mocking the utter absurdity of the emailed request.
In my opinion; UCLA should have made a real effort to settle this one outside of court and the public eye. A $20+ million settlement with the professor including an NDA could have made it all go away, but that’s not going to happen now. With a majority of the public now being rather outspoken against all things DEI, I can’t see the aftermath of this going very well for UCLA. UCLA dug themselves into a hole with their absurdly foolish initial reaction to this and then they chose to keep digging. UCLA has earned every bit of their public rebuke and I hope they loose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding as a result.
It is this toxic idelogy again- that people from “colonized” group need to be excused for their failures and misconduct.
The UCLA leaderships feels that Black people are a “colonized” group.
This same ideology also is behind simping for the ilelgal alien, and opposing deportation per se.
Is there a word for this ideology?
I am going out on a limb with this post and engage in some speculation. My suspicion is that the real reason why UCLA administrators sent out with this request for leniency for black students is that many administrators have racist beliefs about black students, namely that blacks on average intellectually inferior to whites and Asians. The impulse to believe this can be fed by observation (blacks tend to do worse in the class room that whites and Asians) but also by literature (e.g. the Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray).
However university administrators also know that racism is socially unacceptable and a guaranteed career ender, and is unacceptable to their own ego. I am using the term ego in the psychoanalytical sense here, as the ego is the agent is our psychic apparatus that handles moral judgment. In psychoanalytical theory our impulses our guide by the id, while the superego reflects the internalization of external norms taught to use by parents, teachers, and others on whom we depend for social, moral and legal approval.
Whenever there is a conflict between the id at on hand and the ego and superego at the other hand this creates anxiety; this anxiety can take the form of guilt and shame.
In psychological theory defense mechanisms are unconscious thoughts that protect the self from anxiety producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflict and external stressors. So we may expect that university administrators with racist impulses that do not dare to speak their name (id), but who are very well aware of modern society’s norms on racism with which they mentally agree (superego) and who would like to see themselves as good and moral persons (ego) who be driven to apply defense mechanisms.
Examples of defense mechanisms are (source Wikipedia:
The treatment of professor Klein is an example of both defense mechanisms.
What is the potential solution to this? Typically this involves becoming conscious of things. What are our inner motives? What do we belief and why? Why do we follow certain norms? Are those norms valid?
This also means that we need to investigate matters that are culturally sensitive, and be willing to go where the science leads us. Are we able to have a open and sensible scholarly discussion about the book “The Bell Curve” without shouting matches and cancellation? (The “Bell Curve” from Herrnstein and Murray implies that intelligence as indicated by IQ is partly genetic and not independent on group criteria such as race).
Kelin was an employee of the State.
He took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
And here is one provision of the Constitution.
And here is how the United States Supreme Court wrote.
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954)
In asking that he show leniency to Black students, and only Black students, he was being asked to violate Brown.
Klein was correct logically. And the student was likely looking to get an easy grade as if a grade matters and learning something does not.
And as I educate my very white blonde blue eyed children, I explain to them that their only option is to deliver the best value. In the long run, value wins quietly while DEI crap bloats organizations parasitically. Someone out there wants to partner with you to leverage your skill. But beware, the tallest blade of grass is the first to get cut.
Hindsight being 20/20, strategically, he should have escalated the students request to the nearest dean and possibly the registrar of the school. This would have insulated him.