Dear Dr. Klein: Your case is less that of your academic freedom and more, I think, about your ethical duty as a professor to treat all students fairly, that is, in accordance with the principle of equal protection, which means, not showing favoritism to anyone. But perhaps I'm just less focused on your relationship with an increasingly authoritarian university entity seeking to micromanage your teaching and more on your duty to your students.
A related story. In the sixties, my father was chairman of the Dep't of Electrical Engineering of Howard University in Washington D.C. He was once held at knifepoint by one of his students, during one of the campus riots that went on then, who was demanding that the "F" that he had received from my father be raised to a "B." (These days of course the demand would be that the "F" be changed to an "A," and perhaps no "F" would ever have been given at all, regardless of the student's failure to perform.) My father refused. I believe that the police were informed, and appropriate action taken. But that was then, and sadly, this is now.
Nothing will change... no accountability exists. When powerful people can ignore Congressional subpoenas in plain sight and parts of national media backs them up, thinking that a University will be held accountable is just naivete'. I am so glad that Bari found a way to be able to publically say what those who focus on the truth of the matter and not the politics have always know to be the facts. She went through a tough time and came out the other side, and she found her voice without sensor or politics.
Such bullshit. I remember Klein, Aboody and others from my undergrad days at UCLA long ago. I learned a lot and am thankful for the experiences. We must all work to stop this toxic woke culture.
Mr. Klein, why not post the name of the student that had emailed about this? Why not publish the email that was sent? It was real, was it not? I'd hardly think any of this amounts to libel or slander to show something that was sent to you, especially since the student likely shared this widely to kick off what happened to you.
I ask that question not to doubt that this happened. I believe you. But given that this student helped start all of this fun, and operates on the other side of these ridiculous debates they want to have, it might be worthwhile to let the other side experience some of what they've been dishing out to others.
So, the Dean of the Anderson school asked his boss if he could do something stupid. The boss, in no uncertain terms said not only no, but what you are contemplating is illegal. The Dean dose it anyway, has to back track and gets sued. Why does he still have a job?
I IMAGINE that many here would acknowledge that social media causes a LOT more harm than good. Actually, no probably not. Or they'd cure their addiction.
Mebbe they'd agree it causes harm to democracy and the fundamental tenet that people, in general, have more in common than most people think.
As a watchful member of the silent majority, social media appears to be weaponized so that a handful of bad actors are enabled as terrorists against what is noble. By all accounts, Dr. Klein has worked hard to succeed by moral means. I know this by his failure to self-censor in the face of what turns out to be an unscrupulous individual expressing a harmful ideology. Instead, Dr. Klein used his adult skills to help this misguided individual know the truth. Unfortunately for Dr. Klein, this youthful terrorist was manipulated into setting a Kafka trap. Dr. Klein’s good intentions were met with the virtue signaling wrath of the virtual mob. Instead of standing up to this despicable mob, a fine institution has diminished its stature by losing one of its fine thought leaders. Thank you Bari Weiss for platforming someone who has suffered this terrible atrocity. May your quest grow stronger.
I would urge every reader of this essay to take the time to download and read the entire legal action as well. Klein had been instructed by his immediate academic supervisor NOT to grant black students (or anybody else) special exemption from finals. Klein's response, to a white student he'd had in another class and a student who would subsequently choose to take another course with him, consisted of a series of quite reasonable, good-faith questions about the workability of the proposed exemption. The (white) student replied to these questions in a similar good-faith tone and actually apologized! That should indeed have been the end of the matter. What followed could be called a comedy of errors, or a bonfire of the vanities, but it's also sad and infuriating--and a marker of where we are. Thanks for writing this, professor. Thanks, Bari, for publishing this. If reasonable, deliberative people still remain within the justice system, this case will win easily on the merits.
Good for you. Sue them to dust. However, I’m not sure we’ll ever go back to the standards which made this nation great, even if you think there is support for your cause, and there is. It’s too convoluted a culture to do so.
As I understand, Klein's student's stunt was part of a coordinated campaign, organized through a spreadsheet, that targeted over other 80 professors with the same request (and, presumably, the same plan for retribution if they refused). Apparently nearly all the other professors agreed to the request.
Does anyone know what happened to them? Considering they agreed to discriminate on the basis of race, have any been sued under prop 209 or at least subject to complaints by students? The fact that one professor nearly lost his job for doing the right thing - refusing to segregate by race - isn't the most worrying part of the story to me; it's rather the fact that nearly 80 professors seemed to have agreed to racial segregation in their course and face no consequences.
I strongly believe you should also sue the student who started all of this and when your response failed to please him set out to destroy your career. People need to learn that there is a price to pay for actions such as his.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Though many students might not be aware of this, they're enrolled in a degree program to learn. The professor's forceful response to the student, pointing out the logical gaps in his argument, was precisely what was warranted, and all that should occur between the professor and student.
What happened afterwards - the student leaking the e-mail, leading to an online mobbing, then even death threats from other students - are student activities outside of the classroom. It's the responsibility of the deans and administrators (a burgeoning and very well-paid part of the university system) to manage and monitor such student activities - and in this case, to flatly reject their unreasonable demands and reprimand them for their threatening behavior. That's their job. Not only did they fail at that, they initiated more public bullying and libel on their own initiative.
Put it another way: if you observe a child hurting small animals while his parent looks on approvingly, you'd arrest the parents. If you observe an adult hurting small animals by himself, you'd arrest the adult. The social position of a student is somewhere in between these cases - where we assume they hold some moral culpability for their actions but are still receiving guidance on how to act morally in unfamiliar contexts. When it comes to protesting your educator's speech or to interfere with the structure of a curriculum - the boundaries of what is morally acceptable is *not* something that students would have understood before enrolling in a program. Nobody made them sign a statement saying "thou shall not complain about your professor" when they matriculated. So when they *begin* on a path that is clearly morally unacceptable in this regard, the bulk of the responsibility for telling them to stop rests with their current deans, not with themselves or prior authority figures in their lives. And in the case of Anderson, the authority figures not only encouraged their metaphorical act of hurting small animals, but joined in the action themselves. How then can you blame the student for thinking they're doing the right thing?
Sue the university, sue the deans, even sue the other faculty members. Not the student. All that ought to be said to the student was already said in Professor Klein's first e-mail.
Good thing the U.S. has not stooped to the level of China and Russia with their illiberal culture and totalitarian enforced groupthink. I would hate to live in that kind of society where.... eh, never mind.
I wholeheartedly stand with Professor Klein and am disgusted at what happened to him. I am a UCLA graduate. While attending school, I suffered a number of hardships including serious medical issues and mental health problems. Even so, I never asked any professor for any special accommodations let alone for them to take it "easy on me" for an exam, especially when that one exam would determine my grade for the class. And if I had, they would never have agreed to cut me slack on an exam and grade it less harshly. Never.
There are students dealing with all types of hardships, mental stressors and challenges. It is entirely unfair to take it easy on a group of students based solely on their skin color (regardless how affected/unaffected they were by events going on in the world), while ignoring challenges and hardships that other students may be facing. Furthermore, there are difficult situations going on all over the world to many different groups of people - gay/lesbian/transgender, Asian people (particularly the recent violence towards Asians in California), Jewish people, wars going on between different countries, etc. Should we then identify who is upset by what and decide to cut them slack based on how they feel about the state of events in the world?
Professor Weiss was trying to be fair, and anti-racist. He clearly believes in equality and does NOT want to judge students based on the color of their skin, or hold black people to lower standards. Shame on you, UCLA. And anyone that participated in getting this professor fired, harassing him, and tarnishing his reputation. Disgusting.
Dear Dr. Klein: Your case is less that of your academic freedom and more, I think, about your ethical duty as a professor to treat all students fairly, that is, in accordance with the principle of equal protection, which means, not showing favoritism to anyone. But perhaps I'm just less focused on your relationship with an increasingly authoritarian university entity seeking to micromanage your teaching and more on your duty to your students.
A related story. In the sixties, my father was chairman of the Dep't of Electrical Engineering of Howard University in Washington D.C. He was once held at knifepoint by one of his students, during one of the campus riots that went on then, who was demanding that the "F" that he had received from my father be raised to a "B." (These days of course the demand would be that the "F" be changed to an "A," and perhaps no "F" would ever have been given at all, regardless of the student's failure to perform.) My father refused. I believe that the police were informed, and appropriate action taken. But that was then, and sadly, this is now.
Nothing will change... no accountability exists. When powerful people can ignore Congressional subpoenas in plain sight and parts of national media backs them up, thinking that a University will be held accountable is just naivete'. I am so glad that Bari found a way to be able to publically say what those who focus on the truth of the matter and not the politics have always know to be the facts. She went through a tough time and came out the other side, and she found her voice without sensor or politics.
Such bullshit. I remember Klein, Aboody and others from my undergrad days at UCLA long ago. I learned a lot and am thankful for the experiences. We must all work to stop this toxic woke culture.
For a short (amusing) lesson on "How to teach your kid NOT to be racist" please go to:
https://themadmommy.substack.com/p/how-to-teach-your-kid-not-to-be-a?r=b7p1n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=
Mr. Klein, why not post the name of the student that had emailed about this? Why not publish the email that was sent? It was real, was it not? I'd hardly think any of this amounts to libel or slander to show something that was sent to you, especially since the student likely shared this widely to kick off what happened to you.
I ask that question not to doubt that this happened. I believe you. But given that this student helped start all of this fun, and operates on the other side of these ridiculous debates they want to have, it might be worthwhile to let the other side experience some of what they've been dishing out to others.
It's time to stop bringing knives to a gunfight.
So, the Dean of the Anderson school asked his boss if he could do something stupid. The boss, in no uncertain terms said not only no, but what you are contemplating is illegal. The Dean dose it anyway, has to back track and gets sued. Why does he still have a job?
I IMAGINE that many here would acknowledge that social media causes a LOT more harm than good. Actually, no probably not. Or they'd cure their addiction.
Mebbe they'd agree it causes harm to democracy and the fundamental tenet that people, in general, have more in common than most people think.
Jonathan Haidt said it well in 2019. I believe the file was originally called "Social Media is Warping Democracy" but essay was titled "The Dark Psychology of Social Networks." https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/social-media-democracy/600763/
As a watchful member of the silent majority, social media appears to be weaponized so that a handful of bad actors are enabled as terrorists against what is noble. By all accounts, Dr. Klein has worked hard to succeed by moral means. I know this by his failure to self-censor in the face of what turns out to be an unscrupulous individual expressing a harmful ideology. Instead, Dr. Klein used his adult skills to help this misguided individual know the truth. Unfortunately for Dr. Klein, this youthful terrorist was manipulated into setting a Kafka trap. Dr. Klein’s good intentions were met with the virtue signaling wrath of the virtual mob. Instead of standing up to this despicable mob, a fine institution has diminished its stature by losing one of its fine thought leaders. Thank you Bari Weiss for platforming someone who has suffered this terrible atrocity. May your quest grow stronger.
I would urge every reader of this essay to take the time to download and read the entire legal action as well. Klein had been instructed by his immediate academic supervisor NOT to grant black students (or anybody else) special exemption from finals. Klein's response, to a white student he'd had in another class and a student who would subsequently choose to take another course with him, consisted of a series of quite reasonable, good-faith questions about the workability of the proposed exemption. The (white) student replied to these questions in a similar good-faith tone and actually apologized! That should indeed have been the end of the matter. What followed could be called a comedy of errors, or a bonfire of the vanities, but it's also sad and infuriating--and a marker of where we are. Thanks for writing this, professor. Thanks, Bari, for publishing this. If reasonable, deliberative people still remain within the justice system, this case will win easily on the merits.
Dropping standardized tests and lowering college admission requirements are the same thing as what this professor was asked to do.
Good for you. Sue them to dust. However, I’m not sure we’ll ever go back to the standards which made this nation great, even if you think there is support for your cause, and there is. It’s too convoluted a culture to do so.
Just curious is there something we can do to help or support you?
As I understand, Klein's student's stunt was part of a coordinated campaign, organized through a spreadsheet, that targeted over other 80 professors with the same request (and, presumably, the same plan for retribution if they refused). Apparently nearly all the other professors agreed to the request.
Does anyone know what happened to them? Considering they agreed to discriminate on the basis of race, have any been sued under prop 209 or at least subject to complaints by students? The fact that one professor nearly lost his job for doing the right thing - refusing to segregate by race - isn't the most worrying part of the story to me; it's rather the fact that nearly 80 professors seemed to have agreed to racial segregation in their course and face no consequences.
Phew! GREAT points, SY.
I strongly believe you should also sue the student who started all of this and when your response failed to please him set out to destroy your career. People need to learn that there is a price to pay for actions such as his.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Though many students might not be aware of this, they're enrolled in a degree program to learn. The professor's forceful response to the student, pointing out the logical gaps in his argument, was precisely what was warranted, and all that should occur between the professor and student.
What happened afterwards - the student leaking the e-mail, leading to an online mobbing, then even death threats from other students - are student activities outside of the classroom. It's the responsibility of the deans and administrators (a burgeoning and very well-paid part of the university system) to manage and monitor such student activities - and in this case, to flatly reject their unreasonable demands and reprimand them for their threatening behavior. That's their job. Not only did they fail at that, they initiated more public bullying and libel on their own initiative.
Put it another way: if you observe a child hurting small animals while his parent looks on approvingly, you'd arrest the parents. If you observe an adult hurting small animals by himself, you'd arrest the adult. The social position of a student is somewhere in between these cases - where we assume they hold some moral culpability for their actions but are still receiving guidance on how to act morally in unfamiliar contexts. When it comes to protesting your educator's speech or to interfere with the structure of a curriculum - the boundaries of what is morally acceptable is *not* something that students would have understood before enrolling in a program. Nobody made them sign a statement saying "thou shall not complain about your professor" when they matriculated. So when they *begin* on a path that is clearly morally unacceptable in this regard, the bulk of the responsibility for telling them to stop rests with their current deans, not with themselves or prior authority figures in their lives. And in the case of Anderson, the authority figures not only encouraged their metaphorical act of hurting small animals, but joined in the action themselves. How then can you blame the student for thinking they're doing the right thing?
Sue the university, sue the deans, even sue the other faculty members. Not the student. All that ought to be said to the student was already said in Professor Klein's first e-mail.
Good thing the U.S. has not stooped to the level of China and Russia with their illiberal culture and totalitarian enforced groupthink. I would hate to live in that kind of society where.... eh, never mind.
I wholeheartedly stand with Professor Klein and am disgusted at what happened to him. I am a UCLA graduate. While attending school, I suffered a number of hardships including serious medical issues and mental health problems. Even so, I never asked any professor for any special accommodations let alone for them to take it "easy on me" for an exam, especially when that one exam would determine my grade for the class. And if I had, they would never have agreed to cut me slack on an exam and grade it less harshly. Never.
There are students dealing with all types of hardships, mental stressors and challenges. It is entirely unfair to take it easy on a group of students based solely on their skin color (regardless how affected/unaffected they were by events going on in the world), while ignoring challenges and hardships that other students may be facing. Furthermore, there are difficult situations going on all over the world to many different groups of people - gay/lesbian/transgender, Asian people (particularly the recent violence towards Asians in California), Jewish people, wars going on between different countries, etc. Should we then identify who is upset by what and decide to cut them slack based on how they feel about the state of events in the world?
Professor Weiss was trying to be fair, and anti-racist. He clearly believes in equality and does NOT want to judge students based on the color of their skin, or hold black people to lower standards. Shame on you, UCLA. And anyone that participated in getting this professor fired, harassing him, and tarnishing his reputation. Disgusting.