A University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) professor who was suspended and later reinstated for brusquely rebuffing a request to give Black students leniency on their final exams following the death of George Floyd has filed a lawsuit against the school.

Gordon Klein, who teaches financial analysis, law, and public policy at UCLA, filed a lawsuit Monday claiming that he suffered financially and emotionally because of the incident. Although he retained his position, Klein alleged he was dropped from consulting jobs at law firms and other corporations and that his reputation was tarnished as a result.

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The incident that spurred the lawsuit began on the morning of June 2, 2020, when he received an email from who he said was a non-Black student asking that Klein grade Black students with greater “leniency” in the wake of Floyd’s death and the civil unrest that followed.

“We are writing to express our tremendous concern about the impact that this final exam and project will have on the mental and physical health of our Black classmates,” the student wrote {snip}

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In response, Klein emailed the student, and asked: “Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half black half-Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half? Also, do you have any idea if any students are from Minneapolis? I assume that they are probably especially devastated as well. I am thinking that a white student from there might possibly be even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they’re racist even if they are not.”

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He said that by the evening, students were calling for him to be removed from UCLA and a petition with 20,000 signatures circulated demanding that he be fired. Three days after the first email, Klein was suspended by UCLA.

The professor alleged that the school was “rattled” not by the harassment targeted at him but because school administrators were worried about its reputation. {snip}

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