Coastal Caroline College (CCU) is transferring to terminate a theater professor who expressed the opinion that a particularly minor incident on campus didn’t advantage a dramatic response from the division’s Range, Fairness, and Inclusion Committee.
“Sorry however I do not assume it is a huge deal,” wrote the professor, Steven Earnest, in reference to the matter. “I am simply unhappy folks get their emotions damage so simply. And they’re going into Theater?”
The comment has landed him in appreciable bother, in accordance with the Basis of Particular person Rights in Training, which is asking on CCU to stop all punitive motion.
What was the incident? On September 16, a visiting artist spoke with two college students of colour who defined that they have been hoping to attach with different non-white college students on campus. The three of them subsequently wrote down the names of different college students of colour who would possibly want to join and talk about their shared struggles. They left this record of names on a classroom’s whiteboard; the following class noticed it and thought that non-white college students had been singled out for some nefarious function. A protest was deliberate.
The variety committee investigated—and swiftly cleared up—the matter. “We consider you will need to inform the coed physique that the intent behind the record was as a useful resource for brand new college students who wish to be in neighborhood with different BIPOC college students,” wrote the committee in an electronic mail to campus.
Nonetheless, the committee opined that college students’ damage emotions have been utterly legitimate.
“This under no circumstances undermines the emotions that any of you’re feeling about this incident,” the e-mail continued. “It ought to have by no means occurred and the DEI committee will probably be discussing with college and college students the gravity of the scenario and methods to deal with these requests sooner or later.”
Earnest rightly objected to the tone of this electronic mail. In response, college students accused him of racial insensitivity and demanded he be fired. The college instructed him to not come to class and launched an investigation. In line with Earnest, the college has initiated a “termination course of,” regardless of FIRE’s protestation that punishing the professor is an apparent violation of his educational freedom rights.
“CCU has chosen a course denied to it by the First Modification,” wrote FIRE. “We name upon CCU to desert its present path.”
CCU declined a request for remark.
Typically, universities ought to cease caving to college students who’re unreasonably upset about minor infractions—however this wasn’t an infraction in any respect. Campus directors can be well-advised to not put themselves within the place of being answerable for each damage feeling, irrespective of how ill-founded or slight. There’s little profit to creating variety synonymous with absurdity.