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"I suspect the problem lay with the professors response to the student, as opposed to anything else" Please let's not go there. The initial request was pretty

"I suspect the problem lay with the professors response to the student, as opposed to anything else" Please let's not go there. The initial request was pretty bold and condescending. The response was slightly ill mannered, but that's just tone. Both the request and response were within bounds however. 'The problem' is not 'the Professor' - it's an institution that enables radical elements of the student body who generally don't speak for the group at large, or who intimidate otherwise, to dictate authoritarian terms. This is due to fear, the fact that students are seen as 'customers' instead of students, and, frankly that a not insignificant number of faculty side with the students. By your own account is seems reasonable the prof didn't do something very wrong, in which case, the reasonable thing to do would have him publish another, conciliatory note and then move on. The Prof. was arbitrarily maligned, frankly in trying to uphold what he believed was actual law, I don't know why you would think that companies are protected from defamation/libel/slander. We'll have to see how that works out. [1] https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/personal-injury/harm-to-reputation/defamation/ https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/personal-injury/harm-to-reputat...

addicted 5y ago
The only institution that acted against him were the private corporations he was moonlighting with. UCLA, the entity he is suing, reinstated him without any consequences within 3 weeks. I’ve personally been suspended for a lot less (actually, for being the victim) in a college setting.
- jollybean 5y ago
  "The only institution that acted against him " UCLA acted against him - by irresponsibility suspending him for issues regarding supposed racial insensitivity, which were without merit. His suspension caused him to lose revenue, hence the problem. The suspension could be a form of libel i.e. false information published about him, causing him damages. I should add that it's obviously more complicated if he's 'cleared' of something but the libelous damanges linger anyhow.
addicted 5y ago
If he was maligned then why doesn’t he claim that? He claims the act of suspension is what led to him losing his private contracts. Not slander or being maligned. Suspension is a normal part of university investigations that everyone agrees to. The fact that hoti are companies that employ him are able to use that to terminate his at will employment or contract with them says nothing about UCLA doing anything wrong.
addicted 5y ago
I read the introduction to the brief he filed as well, to see if there was something I was missing that he did not mention in the blog, about being maligned or slandered. The closest I could find was: > Moreover, the Dean of the Anderson School, Defendant Antonio Bernardo (“Bernardo”), disparaged Plaintiff to alumni and the general public based on the private communications between Plaintiff and the student who had requested preferential race-based grading policies (“Student”). Dean Bernardo even went so far as to publicly disclose the adverse personnel action the School had improperly imposed on Plaintiff. The private communications he is referring to here is his emails with the student. Which isn’t private if the student chooses to reveal it, like he did in this case. I mean, there’s absolutely 0 legal expectation of privacy in an email sent to someone, but there is hardly even an ethical expectation of privacy if the dispute is based on the email sent. But here’s the thing. Even here he doesn’t use the term defamation, because he knows that’s a legal term completely unsupported by the facts. Speaking badly of somebody is not illegal (and adds even more irony because if that was illegal it would chill public discourse far more than losing private at will contracts with 3rd party entities, when the party you’re suing decided to investigate a claim and then cleared you of it completely).
- jollybean 5y ago
  Why was the University actively passing along supposed evidence, or even commenting on some kind of ongoing investigation? It could only be seen as damaging - wether something is technically 'made public' or not is almost secondary issue. " it would chill public discourse " Well it might 'chill' and restrain Universities ability to have someone 'suspended and investigated' in a public spectacle, and to communicate those issues to alumni, which is possibly materially damaging to individuals careers. It's disturbing to read the comments here about what is 'chilling' because the obvious irony here is that this man did absolutely nothing wrong, and has suffered material damages due to a brigade of ideologues. I don't think we should be concerned about the Unis ability to sanction profs. This is evidence of a form of 'cancel culture', in this case private interests cancelled contracts and probably made it more difficult for him to pursue future contracts with other parties more than likely out of concerns of public outrage as opposed to any real moral condemnation. Everyone at the University has taken note, surely there's a 'chill' on campus. Do you think profs are going to likely speak their minds and have reasonable discourse about these difficult issues? Or will they avoid having any opinion other than what is sanctioned by the most radical elements on campus so as to ensure there will be no uproar? It's deeply illiberal. The conversation should be about appropriately addressing the concerns of the students (whether accommodating their demands or not), and then protecting everyone, staff, students included from inappropriate outrage. The University probably should be contacting the firms that cancelled contracts towards asking them to reinstate the prof in good standing i.e. repairing the situation, and then repairing the culture on campus to allow for reasonable dialogue.
addicted 5y ago
Also, I don’t think the problem was the professor (yet the response was still “ill advised” because if you ever work for a university, even as a part time TA, as I did, you get a whole spiel about forwarding such emails to XYZ@universityyouworkat.edu). That did not make the professor wrong. Like I said, I don’t think the professor was wrong to say what he did. But more relevantly, UCLA did not think the professor was wrong. That’s why they cleared him after their investigations. And they did not slander him either. That’s why the complaint isn’t either about UCLA punishing him, nor about UCLA or a UCLA employee slandering him. The complaint is about private companies terminating his employment because he went through a standard UCLA investigative procedure. One which he agreed to and is common across the country. The only thread his entire argument stands on is that through the process a couple of non binding entities recommended the investigative actions not be taken. But no one is gonna fault an entity for investigating something, and they will definitely not find it illegal.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Yes, sorry, I think you've filled in some reason where I did not. The thing is - it was the act of suspension and subsequent investigation which resulted in material loss of revenue. Ergo, it's possible that this may very well have been the act of libel itself - in much the same way that being publicly accused of some terrible crime, and 'stick' to your public image. I wonder if for such things, it behoves the institution to not make material changes to a situation, and that such investigations must be private. A 'suspension' is a condemning act in and of itself. In Canada, right now, the Army General in charge of vaccine distribution was given the punt after someone made a sexual harrassment claim dating back to 1988. He lost his post and suffered quite a bit of damage, the results of the investigation may very well be nill (maybe not, we don't know), it doesn't matter, the damage is done. He's now suing the Government to be reinstated, but it's 100% politics at this point. Accusations of racism are really, really serious, perhaps we should handle them differently.

addicted 5y ago

The only institution that acted against him were the private corporations he was moonlighting with. UCLA, the entity he is suing, reinstated him without any consequences within 3 weeks. I’ve personally been suspended for a lot less (actually, for being the victim) in a college setting.

jollybean 5y ago
"The only institution that acted against him " UCLA acted against him - by irresponsibility suspending him for issues regarding supposed racial insensitivity, which were without merit. His suspension caused him to lose revenue, hence the problem. The suspension could be a form of libel i.e. false information published about him, causing him damages. I should add that it's obviously more complicated if he's 'cleared' of something but the libelous damanges linger anyhow.

addicted 5y ago

If he was maligned then why doesn’t he claim that? He claims the act of suspension is what led to him losing his private contracts. Not slander or being maligned. Suspension is a normal part of university investigations that everyone agrees to. The fact that hoti are companies that employ him are able to use that to terminate his at will employment or contract with them says nothing about UCLA doing anything wrong.

addicted 5y ago

I read the introduction to the brief he filed as well, to see if there was something I was missing that he did not mention in the blog, about being maligned or slandered. The closest I could find was: > Moreover, the Dean of the Anderson School, Defendant Antonio Bernardo (“Bernardo”), disparaged Plaintiff to alumni and the general public based on the private communications between Plaintiff and the student who had requested preferential race-based grading policies (“Student”). Dean Bernardo even went so far as to publicly disclose the adverse personnel action the School had improperly imposed on Plaintiff. The private communications he is referring to here is his emails with the student. Which isn’t private if the student chooses to reveal it, like he did in this case. I mean, there’s absolutely 0 legal expectation of privacy in an email sent to someone, but there is hardly even an ethical expectation of privacy if the dispute is based on the email sent. But here’s the thing. Even here he doesn’t use the term defamation, because he knows that’s a legal term completely unsupported by the facts. Speaking badly of somebody is not illegal (and adds even more irony because if that was illegal it would chill public discourse far more than losing private at will contracts with 3rd party entities, when the party you’re suing decided to investigate a claim and then cleared you of it completely).

jollybean 5y ago
Why was the University actively passing along supposed evidence, or even commenting on some kind of ongoing investigation? It could only be seen as damaging - wether something is technically 'made public' or not is almost secondary issue. " it would chill public discourse " Well it might 'chill' and restrain Universities ability to have someone 'suspended and investigated' in a public spectacle, and to communicate those issues to alumni, which is possibly materially damaging to individuals careers. It's disturbing to read the comments here about what is 'chilling' because the obvious irony here is that this man did absolutely nothing wrong, and has suffered material damages due to a brigade of ideologues. I don't think we should be concerned about the Unis ability to sanction profs. This is evidence of a form of 'cancel culture', in this case private interests cancelled contracts and probably made it more difficult for him to pursue future contracts with other parties more than likely out of concerns of public outrage as opposed to any real moral condemnation. Everyone at the University has taken note, surely there's a 'chill' on campus. Do you think profs are going to likely speak their minds and have reasonable discourse about these difficult issues? Or will they avoid having any opinion other than what is sanctioned by the most radical elements on campus so as to ensure there will be no uproar? It's deeply illiberal. The conversation should be about appropriately addressing the concerns of the students (whether accommodating their demands or not), and then protecting everyone, staff, students included from inappropriate outrage. The University probably should be contacting the firms that cancelled contracts towards asking them to reinstate the prof in good standing i.e. repairing the situation, and then repairing the culture on campus to allow for reasonable dialogue.

addicted 5y ago

Also, I don’t think the problem was the professor (yet the response was still “ill advised” because if you ever work for a university, even as a part time TA, as I did, you get a whole spiel about forwarding such emails to XYZ@universityyouworkat.edu). That did not make the professor wrong. Like I said, I don’t think the professor was wrong to say what he did. But more relevantly, UCLA did not think the professor was wrong. That’s why they cleared him after their investigations. And they did not slander him either. That’s why the complaint isn’t either about UCLA punishing him, nor about UCLA or a UCLA employee slandering him. The complaint is about private companies terminating his employment because he went through a standard UCLA investigative procedure. One which he agreed to and is common across the country. The only thread his entire argument stands on is that through the process a couple of non binding entities recommended the investigative actions not be taken. But no one is gonna fault an entity for investigating something, and they will definitely not find it illegal.

jollybean 5y ago
Yes, sorry, I think you've filled in some reason where I did not. The thing is - it was the act of suspension and subsequent investigation which resulted in material loss of revenue. Ergo, it's possible that this may very well have been the act of libel itself - in much the same way that being publicly accused of some terrible crime, and 'stick' to your public image. I wonder if for such things, it behoves the institution to not make material changes to a situation, and that such investigations must be private. A 'suspension' is a condemning act in and of itself. In Canada, right now, the Army General in charge of vaccine distribution was given the punt after someone made a sexual harrassment claim dating back to 1988. He lost his post and suffered quite a bit of damage, the results of the investigation may very well be nill (maybe not, we don't know), it doesn't matter, the damage is done. He's now suing the Government to be reinstated, but it's 100% politics at this point. Accusations of racism are really, really serious, perhaps we should handle them differently.