Professor Suspended for Rebuff of Black Student Seeking Leniency Sues UCLA
Gordon Klein, who teaches financial analysis, law, and public policy at UCLA, claimed he suffered financially and emotionally, though he retained his position.
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So a teacher was requested to grade black students more leniently than everyone else after the George Floyd murder. He replied pretty snarkily and refused to change his grading. Was subsequently suspended, lost personal business arrangements as a result, was fairly substantially impacted probably due to the backlash. Afterward he was reinstated and is now suing because America. But he might have a legitimate beef.
I think he was suspended due to the nature of the email exchange, not because he wouldn't make the test easier.
But what are your thoughts? If a black person is affected by something like the George Floyd murder, even if just getting upset about, should there be concessions for things like grading on tests in college?
This feels like an extension of the grief counselors and designated "safe spaces" for students distraught that Hilary didn't win the election.
I feel like it University system, well school system in general, already doesn't do enough to prepare kids to be real adults. Too much coddling, not enough challenging of ideas and engaging critical thinking and discussion skills. I've seen it in new hires directly from college and in anecdotes from my kids who are in college now. Even my daughter who is extremely liberal, came out as bi in high school, feels that there is too much focus on assuaging every tiny perceived slight and not enough on challenging ideas and getting people to work through things as they come. Then again, she's white and generally pretty privileged. Maybe she doesn't have a true perspective on a lot of this. Of course this is beyond the racial aspects and I'm really talking more generally.
My daughter has a friend who breaks down whenever she comes across anything remotely negative. Her parents are very well-off financially and she's never experienced what anyone would call a hardship. But she petitioned the school to allow her and anyone offended by whatever the newest thing was to be allowed to change any class to a pass/fail and to be excused for as many days as the student deems necessary to recover from any and all micro-aggressions they might encounter. The scary thing is there were a lot of kids supporting this.
Where are we headed here? I think we are making progress in some ways, but I'm really afraid for what our future leaders will do when confronted with things of real magnitude when they are fully emotionally crippled by an event that has nothing to do with them to the extent where they feel any and all responsibilities they have should be rendered null and void until they have sufficient time to recover.
Thoughts?
