This post has various links to the 2020 Gordon Klein academic freedom story at UCLA.
Klein’s UCLA webpage says:
“I am reminded of Albert Einstein’s admonition, ‘Everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.’ Learning accounting or any quantitative discipline, without a concomitant emphasis on ethical behavior, is not a true education.”
Klein had a very interesting and touching interview on the Larry O’Connor show. He talks about how he grew up in Detroit and went to the public schools; how he was a professional keyboardist and has played gospel music in black churches; how he turned in a colleague for discriminating against hispanics; how the student email that sparked this was part of a well-organized national campaign to go after a list of some 80 faculty; how he was thinking of retiring soon anyway and just volunteering time to help student clubs…. his liberal credentials are impeccable. And he describes how Dean Bernardo hung up on him after only talking with him a minute.)
https://thepostmillennial.com/ucla-students-dox-professor-george-floyd
https://www.theblaze.com/news/ucla-professor-petition-george-floyd-protest
June 9 Washington Free Beacon:
University of California Los Angeles accounting professor Gordon Klein faced threats of violence after he declined a student’s request that he delay a final exam in light of national unrest. The university suspended the professor for three weeks beginning on June 25 and launched a discrimination investigation into the incident. Klein declined a request for comment, but a Malibu Police Department spokesman said the department increased police presence near the educator’s home after Klein received multiple threats.
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The message also announced that Klein’s classes would be transferred to Professors Brett Trueman and Judson Caskey, who also serves as the Anderson school’s diversity committee chairman.
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An email obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon shows that Caskey urged professors to avoid changing final exam plans in the face of student demands.“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.),” Caskey wrote in a June 1 email.
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A university spokesman declined to comment on Klein’s situation, citing “confidentiality and privacy laws and concerns.”
June 9, NBC:
Klein said he was following the orders of his direct supervisor when he denied the request, saying he has in the past extended or even eliminated final exams under extraordinary circumstances, including when students had to be out of the country.
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Klein said he has “always provided compassionate treatment for students who face unique stresses and situations during final exams.”Klein, who said he also teaches a course in law and public policy, said, “I sympathize with anyone who at any time feels anguish or pain.”
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Klein said the student who requested the postponement is not black.“In 39 years of teaching, there are hundreds of students who can attest that I have given them compassion, encouragement and support,” he said.
June 11. Figaro.
Californie : un professeur de UCLA suspendu pour avoir refusé de favoriser les étudiants noirs dans leur notation
Des étudiants «alliés» avaient fait pression sur le professeur pour adapter la notation des élèves noirs, sur fond de la mobilisation Black lives matter. Un incident qui n’est pas une première dans le pays, et souligne la radicalisation de nombreux campus.
by Luc Lenoir
June 14. In the War for Social Justice, Academic Freedom Is an Early Casualty
By Debra J. Saunders
June 15. Paranoja politycznej poprawności! Profesor odmówił łagodnego potraktowania czarnoskórych studentów. Został zawieszony. You might have missed this one. But Google translate brings even the Polish media to monolingual Americans.
June 15. Petition demands firing of UCLA dean for punishing professor who questioned race-based grading. Greg Piper, The College Fix. Very strong.
June 16. Instapundit.
UCLA MANAGEMENT DEAN ANTONIO BERNARDO SUSPENDED FACULTY MEMBER GORDON KLEIN, after Klein refused to grade black students under a lower standard. That was in response to a petition by a student, Preet Bains. Now there’s a petition to have Dean Antonio Bernardo fired. It’s got quite a few signatures, but I’ll bet Dean Bernardo’s response isn’t as swift.
June 30. Eugene Volokh, UCLA Faculty Senate resolution. This is ridiculously mild. “Chilling effects”. You can tell that if UCLA started gassing Jewish professors, the faculty would be “concerned”, but not want to criticize any administrator by name, since that would be too mean. At least if that was the progressive position.
The process of evaluating the situation is proceeding at the Anderson School, and our committee has no direct role in that process. Our concern instead is that any public announcement that an instructor is being placed on administrative leave for what appears to be a particular statement—whether the statement happened in class, in an e-mail responding to a student, on social media, or wherever else—creates a chilling effect for other instructors, especially untenured ones. It is the committee’s role to try to prevent such chilling effects.
As one commenter said,
I’m thinking of this as a League of Nations statement about Poland, circa 1939.
June 30. Somebody posted the spreadsheet Prof. Klein mentioned in his radio interview of 80 professors that progressives targeted to trap into being targets for cancelling. It’s at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IX42mJZdzoi8q7iiiAWMqVpBi_3dCwn9X2xoKfnR6CI/edit#gid=1221560764.
There is a change.org petition up now to fire Dean Antonio Bernardo, the villain of this story. It is at https://www.change.org/p/chancellor-ucla-gene-block-firing-antonio-bernardo-dean-of-ucla-s-anderson-school-of-management. A shorter address is http://chng.it/8BgJgTCn.
The petition to fire Gordon Klein with about 20,000 signatures is here. The petition to reinstate him with about 50,000 signatures is here.
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