The moment anyone emails me about diversity and inclusion, I’m forwarding that to my boss to deal with. Professor was walking through a minefield.
The professor's point is that no professor should have to walk through mine fields when rejecting demands for special priviledges, specially if it's the school administration laying out said mines instead of actively doing their best to defuse them.
Probably navigating conflicts like this.
But what might be easily lost because of the strange way this article is written is that UCLA agreed with the professor. There was absolutely no disciplinary action taken against him.
It sucks that he was suspended for 3 weeks, but colleges have to deal with a situation where young vulnerable barely adults are entering completely new environments without their parents protecting them for the first time in their lives and as a result have a disciplinary system that, rightfully, requires investigations of almost all complaints.
That meant the professor got 3 weeks off with pay, while the college investigated and found nothing wrong with his actions.
That’s how the system works, and it actually usually works well, as it did in this instance.
The problem the professor has is not with UCLA that did everything right. The problem he has is with the private companies with whom he has at will/contractual terms of employment. These companies do not adhere to the rules that UCLA did which allowed them to have him continue as before after a reasonable investigation. They simply fired him.
And American law allows companies to fire (non unionized) workers without cause (unless the reason is a protected category, such as race...for example, if he was fired for being white..but he wasn’t. They fired him for being suspended, as he states in the article). But suing a bunch of private companies in a lawsuit that was bound to fail would neither win him any money, would make him look worse, and would not allow him to get a right wing celebrity to feature his story as part of their deeply flawed cancel culture narrative.
My wife got pulled out of undergrad to go drive trucks in Ramadi during 2004/2005.
To argue that college student need to be protected from words is the height of privilege.
A diverse college population includes all sort of people, of all sorts of ages and backgrounds. Some will have gone already gone through hell in their lives, and come back stronger. Some will be trying to start a new life. For some, this will be their first time away from their hometown, at a university that has as many people as their hometown did.
Does this mean that college students need to be protected? No. Instead, I make two suggestions/requests:
1. When starting from nothing, assume the best of intentions.
2. Assume your email will be read in the worst possible tone. Corollary: Don't be an asshole in your emails.
I disagree with that statement, based on the article's paragraph starting "Without any deliberation I was aware of…"
The big question is, were the actions of and statements by Anderson made as part of a normal, documented procedure for this sort of occurrence? Were these actions taken in consultation with, or under the direction of, the relevant disciplinary authorities?
If not, then I think Anderson does have a case to answer to.
If that's truly the case, then the parents failed.