Level The Playing Field–Don’t Move The Finish Line

On Thursday, The College Fix posted an article about a court case involving an accounting lecturer at UCLA.

The article reports:

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge H. Jay Ford III recently ruled against entirely dismissing a lawsuit filed against UCLA by accounting lecturer Gordon Klein, who would not implement a lenient race-based grading system in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death.

The judge, in his March 30 ruling, did allow some causes of action lodged against the University of California system regents and UCLA Dean Antonio Bernardo to be dismissed, but allowed several others to proceed. A jury trial has been scheduled for April 2023.

Ford stated in his ruling that Klein has provided evidence that “would support judgment in his favor” regarding his breach of contract, false light and labor code violation claims.

Cornell law Professor William Jacobson, in explaining the ruling, noted UCLA had sought dismissal of the case under California’s anti-SLAPP protections, “which provides an expedited process for adjudication of whether the claims fall under the statute.”

Jacobson said the ruling means UCLA’s avenues for avoiding a jury trial are small.

“While I don’t think that precludes later motions practice, there already has been a review of evidence by the court and the court found that the claims are legally cognizable. So it’s unclear to me what the path would be to get the remaining parts of the case dismissed prior to trial,” he wrote on his Legal Insurrection blog.

Following Floyd’s death, Klein received a request from a non-black student asking that he provide academic leniency for black students under emotional duress at the time.

Klein responded June 2, 2020, by asking how he was supposed to identify black students in the online class; whether he should also go easy on white students from Minneapolis; how much leeway to show half-black students; and how the student feels about Martin Luther King Jr.’s admonition to not evaluate people based on “the color of their skin.”

The article concludes:

Klein declined to comment to The College Fix this week on the ruling. Bernardo referred a request for comment to UCLA’s media affairs division.

“The rulings last week in no way addressed the question of punitive damages. The court dismissed some of Professor Klein’s causes of action, and made no final rulings on the merits of any of the remaining claims against the university or Dean Bernardo,” UCLA spokesman Bill Kisliuk told The College Fix.

Last fall, Klein wrote an op-ed explaining the motivation for his lawsuit and why he seeks both compensatory and punitive damages.

“You see, most of my income comes not from teaching at UCLA but from consulting to law firms and other corporations. Several of those firms dropped me after they got wind that I’d been suspended — the better to put distance between themselves and a ‘racist.’ That cost me the lion’s share of my annual income,” he wrote.

This is another example of the insanity that has gripped our college campuses. Giving a student a grade he has not earned does not help anyone. The goal of an education is to prepare a student to be a contributing member of society. To pad a grade for any reason undermines that goal. I choose not to name names, but in recent years we have seen the folly of putting people in positions based on their race, sexuality, gender preference, etc. The request by the student for academic leniency was simply the predecessor to promotions based on something other than merit.

Failed Parenting

One of the most important things a parent can do is lead by example. Any time a parent does something that is not above board, it is a pretty good bet that their child will learn that it is okay to take shortcuts that may not be entirely honest. Unfortunately there seems to be a group of parents that despite their success has not yet figured this out.

The Associated Press is reporting today that federal authorities have charged a number of wealthy and famous people with falsifying information to make sure their children got into their schools of choice. I understand the desire of any parent to provide the best education possible for their children, but this scheme definitely stepped over the line.

The article reports:

Fifty people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were charged Tuesday in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders to get their children into some of the nation’s most elite schools.

Federal authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department, with the parents accused of paying an estimated $25 million in bribes.

“These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in announcing the results of an investigation code-named Operation Varsity Blues.

…At least nine athletic coaches and 33 parents, many of them prominent in law, finance or business, were among those charged. Dozens, including Huffman, were arrested by midday.

The coaches worked at such schools as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Wake Forest, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. A former Yale soccer coach pleaded guilty and helped build the case against others.

The article continues:

The bribes allegedly were dispensed through an admissions consulting company in Newport Beach, California. Authorities said parents paid William Singer, the founder of the Edge College & Career Network, the bribe money to get their children into college.

Prosecutors said Singer was scheduled to plead guilty in Boston Tuesday to charges including racketeering conspiracy. John Vandemoer, the former head sailing coach at Stanford, was also expected to plead guilty.

Colleges moved quickly to discipline the coaches accused. Stanford fired Vandemoer, UCLA suspended its soccer coach, and Wake Forest did the same with its volleyball coach.

Several schools, including USC and Yale, said they were victims themselves of the scam. USC also said it is reviewing its admissions process to prevent further such abuses.

This is a sad commentary on where we are as a society. Obviously some parents want to take the guess work out of college admissions. What is the lesson they are teaching their children? I wonder exactly how much of these scheme the children involved were aware of. Certainly if a child is recruited for a sport he has no knowledge of, he might notice that something is amiss. I hope the penalties for the parents are severe. As much as I can sympathize with the stress of getting children into good colleges (all three of my daughters are college graduates, two have advanced degrees), what these parents did is inexcusable–first of all because it is patently dishonest and second of all because of the example it sets for the students.

What Is Happening In Some Of Our Colleges ?

This is a story from a month ago that I didn’t see at the time. It is important, so I am reporting on it now. On June 14, the Corner at National Review posted a story about a UCLA professor who was fired for being a whistle-blower.

Dr. James E. Enstrom challenged some of the ‘junk science’ used to justify overly strict emissions regulations in California. He also pointed out that key members of the state’s “scientific review panel” have overstayed term limits by decades. He was fired for his efforts.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has filed suit against UCLA for the University’s actions.

The ACLJ website reports:

Dr. Enstrom, a research professor in UCLA’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, published important peer-reviewed research demonstrating that fine particulate matter does not kill Californians.  Also, Dr. Enstrom assembled detailed evidence that contends powerful UC professors and others have systematically exaggerated the adverse health effects of diesel particulate matter in California, knowing full well that these exaggerations would be used by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to justify draconian diesel vehicle regulations in California.  In addition, the complaint argues that he exposed the fact that the lead author of the key CARB Report used to justify the diesel regulations did not have the UC Davis Ph.D. degree that he claimed.  Instead, according to the suit, this “scientist” bought a fake Ph.D. for $1,000 from a fictional “Thornhill University.”

Dr. Enstrom was fired, the ‘scientist’ with the fake degree kept his job.

The ACLJ website explains:

Finally, Dr. Enstrom discovered that several activist members of the CARB Scientific Review Panel on Toxic Air Contaminants have exceeded the legislatively mandated three-year term limits by decades. The suit contends that shortly after Dr. Enstrom revealed this systematic wrongdoing, UCLA not only issued a notice of termination, it denied him any compensation for his work by systematically and wrongfully looting his research fund accounts.  Dr. Enstrom worked for more than a year without pay as he in good faith appealed his wrongful termination using UCLA procedures.  Ironically enough, the fake “scientist” was only suspended for his misconduct while Dr. Enstrom was terminated for telling the truth.

If we want future leaders of America to get the education they need to lead the country effectively, we need to take a look at some of the things that are going on in our universities.