A law professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago has fought back against a perceived attempt by university leadership, at the behest of certain allegedly offended students, to allegedly humiliate the professor into accepting punishments, including suspensions, denial of a pay raise and required diversity training, over his use of example redacted racial epithets in an exam question dealing with the law and racial discrimination.
On Jan. 27, Jason Kilborn filed suit in Chicago federal court against various UIC administrators. Named defendants include UIC Chancellor Michael Amiridis; UIC’s Associate Chancellor for the Office for Access and Equity Caryn A. Bills; Interim Dean of the UIC School of Law Julie M. Spanbauer; Donald Kamm, director of UIC’s Office for Access and Equity; and Ashley Davidson, former Title IX & Equity Compliance Specialist in the Office for Access and Equity at UIC.
The suit does not name UIC as a defendant.
Kilborn is represented in the action by attorney Wayne B. Giampietro, of the firm of Poltrock & Giampietro, of Chicago.
The lawsuit centers on UIC’s alleged response to complaints university administrators allegedly told Kilborn they had received from Black students, allegedly beginning with a question Kilborn had included on the final exam for a class on civil procedure which Kilborn taught at UIC.
According to the complaint, Kilborn, on the exam, had asked students to analyze a piece of evidence, an account from a former manager that the manager had “quit her job at Employer after she attended a meeting in which other managers expressed their anger at Plaintiff, calling her a ‘n ----’ and ‘b ----’ (profane expressions for African Americans and women) and vowed to get rid of her.”
According to the complaint, the question appeared in that form, with the epithets entirely redacted, but for the first letter of each word. According to the complaint, Kilborn’s final exam had included that exact question for at least the previous 10 years. Over that time, the test had been taken by “numerous Black and non-white students.”
However, in December 2020, the exam question allegedly prompted certain Black students to complain to administrators that they had been made to feel uncomfortable by the test question.
Kilborn was then summoned to a meeting with the law school dean, and he allegedly, of his own volition, agreed to send “a note of regret to his class if those oblique references had caused anyone any distress.”
However, in January, UIC administrators and students allegedly increased the intensity of their examination of Kilborn. The professor was allegedly placed on administrative leave, and forbidden from teaching or even meeting informally with students, faculty colleagues, or UIC alumni.
According to the complaint, students had created a petition concerning Kilborn’s exam question, and the Black Law Student Association had asked fellow past and current students to come forward if they had ever been “affected” by Kilborn.
According to the complaint, Kilborn learned of the petition during a conversation with a representative of the Black Law Student Association. When he was asked why he believed the dean had not told him about the student petition, Kilborn said, using a “metaphorical expression,” that “perhaps she had not shared the petition with him because she feared that if Plaintiff (Kilborn) saw the hateful things said about him in that petition, he might ‘become homicidal.’”
According to the complaint, the students allegedly then used that “metaphorical expression” against him, telling administrators they feared Kilborn might turn violent. This, in turn, allegedly led administrators to cite the school’s anti-violence plan in cracking down on Kilborn.
Later investigations later allegedly determined Kilborn had never discriminated against anyone.
However, the university administrators still determined he had violated school policy against “harassment.”
According to the complaint, a report prepared by the Office for Access and Equity was allegedly replete with falsehoods, misrepresentations and mischaracterizations concerning Kilborn’s academic and classroom statements and activities.
According to the complaint, Kilborn and UIC administrators reached a deal under which Kilborn could avoid “sensitivity training on (his) supposed ‘white privilege’ and engagement with diverse students,” if a review of his previous four semesters of class recordings revealed he had “failed to maintain a non-harassing classroom environment.”
However, UIC administrators allegedly reneged on that deal. Administrators allegedly cited Kilborn’s “policy violation” to deny him an across-the-board 2% pay raise, doled out to all other instructors.
Then, administrators in late 2021 ordered Kilborn to participate in the very diversity training they had agreed to allow him to avoid months earlier, and suspended him from teaching in the Spring 2022 semester.
They ordered him to undertake an 8-week “diversity course;” 20 hours of course work, including required ‘self-reflection’ papers; plus weekly 90-minute sessions with a “trainer,” who would be empowered to determine if Kilborn agreed with “the goals of the program.”
“Only upon satisfactory completion of this program would Plaintiff be allowed to return to class in Fall, 2022,” the complaint said.
In his lawsuit, Kilborn asserts the UIC administrators violated his constitutional rights to protected academic speech, due process and equal protection, under the First, Fifth and Fourteenth amendments, and Illinois laws protecting academic freedom.
The lawsuit seeks a court order barring the administrators from “enforcing the anti-discrimination policy” in a way that violates the constitutional and legal rights of teachers and students.
Further, Kilborn’s lawsuit asks the court to order the defendants to pay at least $100,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.
According to a press release announcing the lawsuit, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is assisting Kilborn with his legal action.
“The only thing that will hold UIC accountable for its unconstitutional actions is a lawsuit,” said Kilborn, in the release.
“Kilborn did nothing wrong to begin with, but UIC has done everything wrong,” said Giampietro in the release. “UIC has proved itself to be both illiberal and disingenuous, and it’s past time to follow through on our threat of legal action.”