Today’s blacklisted American: Professor forced to undergo mental examination because students didn’t like exam question
Mao’s 1966 cultural revolution comes to the
University of Illinois-Chicago
Persecution is now cool! Law professor Jason Kilborn at the University of Illinois-Chicago was suspended by his university and forced to undergo a mental examination plus drug tests essentially because some unnamed students objected to an exam question that referenced racial slurs and that Kilborn had been using in his tests for a decade.
Kilborn told Campus Reform that his classes “were cancelled for the entire semester on the very first day of class. He said he also had to undergo “an agonizing several-week period of ‘administrative leave,’” during which he was “barred from campus and prevented from participating in normal faculty communications and activities, including my elected position on the university promotion and tenure committee.”
Kilborn said he was compelled to submit to three hours of mental examination and a drug test by university doctors and a social worker, broken into two segments spanning the course of a week.
The exam question that caused the furor appears to have been part of a program focused on teaching law students how to determine the factual basis for any legal action, as Kilborn explains here,
Employment discrimination is among the most common topics of federal civil litigation, and our textbook authors use that context frequently, so it’s certainly appropriately contextual. I was also trying to acknowledge the challenges that women of color still face in the workplace and the important role of civil procedure in discovering and addressing these wrongs. The only question seems to be whether it was problematic for me to be specific (in abbreviated form, to avoid actually using these horrible words) about what the manager had heard others say.
I don’t want to make anyone feel unnecessarily distressed during a high-stakes exam, but I am just flabbergasted at the reaction here for the first time in ten years of consistently administering this very question to classes every bit as diverse as the one that sat for this exam this semester (though I have no idea exactly WHO is reacting in this way or why, as no one from the leadership of this campaign against me has attempted to communicate with me in any way). [emphasis mine]
In other words, he was teaching his students how to discover actual facts, including the use of racial slurs, to defend their clients against such abuse. For this his university decided to bow to the protesters and treat him as a leper.
Furthermore, as the highlighted words above make clear, Kilborn’s accusers are anonymous, and have made no effort to begin any open and honest communications. Their petition names no one, and shows no willingness to sit down and discuss the incident with him or the school, because if such a thing happened, the protest would quickly die out because it would become evident that the accusations are absurd and false.
Instead the unnamed protesters make demands, all designed destroy Kilborn while using this incident as a tool for gaining more power. The petition demands that Kilborn step down from all committees, that the school have multiple teachers assigned to all mandatory courses (teachers likely chosen by the protesters), and that all faculty and staff undergo “mandatory cultural sensitivity training,” which we all know translates into imposing some form of a Marxist anti-white indoctrination session on everyone.
It also appears from the school’s initial and cowardly acquiescence to their demands, they have succeeded. Whether Kilborn faces more serious long term punishment however remains unclear. He has enlisted the aid of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has sent the school a blunt six page letter documenting clearly that Kilborn had done nothing wrong, is protected by law and the first amendment, and that the school has no cause to punish him.
We shall see if the school recognizes these facts. If they don’t, then Kilborn must sue, and sue hard.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Mao’s 1966 cultural revolution comes to the
University of Illinois-Chicago
Persecution is now cool! Law professor Jason Kilborn at the University of Illinois-Chicago was suspended by his university and forced to undergo a mental examination plus drug tests essentially because some unnamed students objected to an exam question that referenced racial slurs and that Kilborn had been using in his tests for a decade.
Kilborn told Campus Reform that his classes “were cancelled for the entire semester on the very first day of class. He said he also had to undergo “an agonizing several-week period of ‘administrative leave,’” during which he was “barred from campus and prevented from participating in normal faculty communications and activities, including my elected position on the university promotion and tenure committee.”
Kilborn said he was compelled to submit to three hours of mental examination and a drug test by university doctors and a social worker, broken into two segments spanning the course of a week.
The exam question that caused the furor appears to have been part of a program focused on teaching law students how to determine the factual basis for any legal action, as Kilborn explains here,
Employment discrimination is among the most common topics of federal civil litigation, and our textbook authors use that context frequently, so it’s certainly appropriately contextual. I was also trying to acknowledge the challenges that women of color still face in the workplace and the important role of civil procedure in discovering and addressing these wrongs. The only question seems to be whether it was problematic for me to be specific (in abbreviated form, to avoid actually using these horrible words) about what the manager had heard others say.
I don’t want to make anyone feel unnecessarily distressed during a high-stakes exam, but I am just flabbergasted at the reaction here for the first time in ten years of consistently administering this very question to classes every bit as diverse as the one that sat for this exam this semester (though I have no idea exactly WHO is reacting in this way or why, as no one from the leadership of this campaign against me has attempted to communicate with me in any way). [emphasis mine]
In other words, he was teaching his students how to discover actual facts, including the use of racial slurs, to defend their clients against such abuse. For this his university decided to bow to the protesters and treat him as a leper.
Furthermore, as the highlighted words above make clear, Kilborn’s accusers are anonymous, and have made no effort to begin any open and honest communications. Their petition names no one, and shows no willingness to sit down and discuss the incident with him or the school, because if such a thing happened, the protest would quickly die out because it would become evident that the accusations are absurd and false.
Instead the unnamed protesters make demands, all designed destroy Kilborn while using this incident as a tool for gaining more power. The petition demands that Kilborn step down from all committees, that the school have multiple teachers assigned to all mandatory courses (teachers likely chosen by the protesters), and that all faculty and staff undergo “mandatory cultural sensitivity training,” which we all know translates into imposing some form of a Marxist anti-white indoctrination session on everyone.
It also appears from the school’s initial and cowardly acquiescence to their demands, they have succeeded. Whether Kilborn faces more serious long term punishment however remains unclear. He has enlisted the aid of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has sent the school a blunt six page letter documenting clearly that Kilborn had done nothing wrong, is protected by law and the first amendment, and that the school has no cause to punish him.
We shall see if the school recognizes these facts. If they don’t, then Kilborn must sue, and sue hard.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I don’t have much respect for somone who submits to this kind of persecution.
He should have told them to shove it, I will NOT submit to your marxism. Hopefully he sues. That is one of the only legal ways you are going to start putting an end to this garbage is wiping out their wallets. Moving sucks but he might consider getting a new job, because even if he wins, he still lost, they will spin up some crime against humanity reason to can him.
There is a sensibility codified in Amendment 6 of the US Constitution, about having the right to confront witnesses against you. This for legal, criminal proceedings. Apparently not for kangaroo gimmicks big academia employs, though. And they are comfortable with the likes of Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill in their midst.
Says a lot.
But apparently no one in authority is listening. It continues unabated.
WE SAW THIS CRAP HAPPEN IN THE SOVIET UNION, CUBA AND RED CHINA.. NOW WE SEE IT HERE IN THE SUPPOSED LAND OF THE FREE HOME OF THE BRAVE.
The left eating one of their own. Who cares? If some negroes are going to get upset by the mere sight of a word that so many of them use every single day in normal conversation, then maybe there’s just no middle ground to ever agree to with those types of people. BLM has made it absolutely clear that they will settle for nothing less than absurd reparations and full segregation from the white man. I say, give them the latter. Send them all back to whatever land they revere more than the US. Remember, so many blacks actually discriminate against other blacks simply based on the shade of blackness between them.
I attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, and admire the Professor for calling out the blatant unlawful discrimination this university has practiced for many years, and experienced it myself by being denied using my Illinois Veterans Grant, administered by the Ilinois Student Commission to attend the Study Abroad Program.
While a member of the Honors College, I took a Sociology class from a Communist Professor who didn’t appreciate my conservatism, and the bitch tried to get away with giving me a failing grade.
How are teachers going to teach employment discrimination without expressing the words used to discriminate? Get tough, snowflakes, you’ve heard them before and probably used them yourself. This ludicrous that the administration of a law school would kowtow to this stupidity. I can tell you as a lawyer for 50 years that as such you better get a tougher skin, little baby lawyers, because you ain’t heard nothing yet, and it’s going to be coming straight at you.
Excelsior College did this to me a year ago. Fired despite stellar reviews. No recompense because their unconstitutional behavior was all verbal.
It is a total Psychiatric and Big pharma Tyranny , and Doctors are ‘all in’ , time to start terminating with extreme prejudice all the Globalist minions at all levels of Government and Bureaucracy , and all Globalist Owned Proxy Corporations . We are Living in a Feudal Corporate Tyranny , that is Why Our Fore fathers fought to control the power of Corporations , but of course , a ” judge” cheated us all , and gave ‘person hood’ status to Corporations , over 80 years ago , and now The Corporations are The Masters under Euro Royal Pedophile Houses , and The Central Banking Families .
Sadly conservatives were apologists for corporations-call them out and corporate talk radio red baits you..and promotes ‘loser pays’ crap that makes redress all but impossible. I came from a family of Yellow Dogs who saw how “Paleo-cons” were ill treated by the Chamber of commerce types. You were warned. I am a man without a party.
Have your kids go to trade school so they can charge this generation of know-nothing crybabies $100/hour to fix their plumbing or electrical problems.
Sgt Snuffy: No need to yell, we get it.
‘Heart palpitations?’
Let’s go whole hog, sunshine. You experienced a serious physical ailment, yet you did not call for help? Your lack of concern for your health is disturbing. You seem unaware that your physical well-being affects those around you. Please report to the Psychiatric Office for an evaluation.
caveat– haven’t delved into this in any depth (at all) but this bothers me to no end:
“….compelled to submit to three hours of mental examination and a drug test by university doctors and a social worker,…”
–this doesn’t pass the smell test on it’s face.
(as an aside—-don’t ever voluntarily submit to any thing remotely like this– everything you say will be twisted against you and you have zero recourse.
Wayne – ” (as an aside—-don’t ever voluntarily submit to any thing remotely like this– everything you say will be twisted against you and you have zero recourse.”
Agreed, If you have to submit to that sort of thing have your lawyer present. (and have him or her review your employment contract and organization’s HR manual on what they can and can’t do beforehand) The problem is that he walked into the lion’s den as a wide eyed innocent, thinking it’s all a misunderstanding and we’re all logical, mature adults here, when they wanted to stick a knife in his guts and twist it.
It’s past time to stand up to the left’s insanity no matter what it takes. But first we have to get our republican politicians to stand up. Such fools.
Larry Folds observed: “But first we have to get our republican politicians to stand up.”
Respectfully disagree, First, we have to stand up.
Most people “go with the flow” because to stand up is a resource-intensive exercise fraught with failure. Conservative thought (including religion) is under a constant frontal assault at nearly every level across our society. There are few safe havens, mainly in areas of less prominence and impact.
When the suburban moms’ displeasure with school boards reaches into the university-level academia and the corporations recognize that hiring the output of that process is a competitive disadvantage — maybe things will change. Woke, awake, and aware are three different things.
Until then, the Academia is protected from itself by itself, with support from the elitists. The corporations believe that there are always influential political candidates whose participation enhances both bottom lines. Employees (legal and illegal), desperate for cash, will accept jobs at rates controlled by the corporations and the government.
With moral support to Dr. Lesko Brandon.
At this time the inmates are running the education asylums in the USA.
Col Beausabre-
yes, absolutely.
Again, not knowing any specific details– he may have thought he could “talk his way out of it.”
Being a law professor, he should have consulted an actual lawyer. Why is he consenting to being “examined” by social workers? (I want to know their credentials.)
You don’t need a MD to conduct a drug-screen, and why in the brandon is he consenting to a drug test? (last time I checked, weed is legal in Illinois.)
None of this makes any sense.
Skip Mars. Nobody’s ever gonna ‘settle’ on it.
Isn’t preventing this sort of thing the entire purpose of tenure?