Successfully Defending Oneself Versus Angry, Ill-Intended Opinion and Harmful Demands

Professor Charles Negy

New York Times headline:
University Must Reinstate Professor Who Tweeted About ‘Black Privilege’

That’s an interesting development. How you view the decision might depend on which lens and experiences that you view the professor’s behavior through and that behavior’s impact, if any, on other people and groups.

Frankly, I’m surprised, shocked even at the ruling.

First, the reasoning behind the decision:

“The arbitrator said that the university failed to show ‘just cause’ in January 2021, when it terminated the professor, Charles Negy, the author of a book titled ‘White Shaming: Bullying Based on Prejudice, Virtue-Signaling, and Ignorance,’” reported Michael Levenson.

Despite the multiple types of pain Negy has endured, the good news, for him, is plentiful. His employer, the University of Central Florida (UCF) must reinstate him (imagine that relationship tension) with tenure, pay and benefits.

School leadership, of course, wasn’t happy about it as you might imagine, and maybe for part public relations reasons and part anger, spoke its peace.

“U.C.F. stands by the actions taken following a thorough investigation that found repeated misconduct in Professor Negy’s classroom, including imposing his views about religion, sex and race,” the university communicated. “However, we are obligated to follow the arbitrator’s ruling.”

Negy spoke up too about his own upset.

“Just because George Floyd died, which was a national tragedy, doesn’t mean the social mob gets to go around demanding people get fired just because they are offended by controversial comments,” he said.

So what led to his trouble? Despite working in an academic setting and wanting to stimulate a deep conversation, he took a big risk in today’s culture.

“If Afr. Americans as a group, had the same behavioral profile as Asian Americans (on average, performing the best academically, having the highest income, committing the lowest crime, etc.), would we still be proclaiming ‘systematic racism’ exists?” he wrote.

On Twitter, he boldly tweeted, “Black privilege is real: Besides affirm. action, special scholarships and other set asides, being shielded from legitimate criticism is a privilege. But as a group, they’re missing out on much needed feedback.”

You know the reaction that was going to trigger. That’s some reckless communication, especially for Twitter. Anger resulted and a call for his termination. University leadership obliged, firing him.

The stated explanation was that Negy was not being dismissed from his post for his tweet because that was “protected by the First Amendment,” but instead because of “repeated violations of university policies and regulations,” and “a hostile learning environment” for his students “through discriminatory harassment.”

There’s more. “The letter said he had deterred students from filing complaints about his classroom conduct and had failed to report that a student had told him that she had been sexually assaulted by one of his teaching assistants in February 2014,” Levenson reported.

Clearly, the takedown was going full tilt.

Back to the arbitrator, Ben Falcigno. His conclusion was that UCF didn’t prove “just cause” because it didn’t allow Negy the opportunity to change his alleged poor, below-standard conduct in the classroom or prove that he couldn’t change his approach.

Falcigno also communicated that Negy was a well-respected and valued educator, as the professor had received three awards for teaching productivity and excellence.

He reported that Negy had five-straight years of high marks on his job reviews, where he was “rated as overall outstanding.” Falcigno pointed as well to the fact that UCF gave Negy a raise to persuade him not to leave.

The New York Times article, in an interesting additional note, reported that Alissa Carmi, a UCF senior and former student of Negy’s, said that “she and a roommate had spent months gathering testimonials from Dr. Negy’s current and former students who felt that they had been subjected to racism and other forms of discrimination in his classroom.”

Notice the zeal to take down a professor who clearly was not widely respected and was now public enemy no. 1.

As for what qualified for racist and discriminatory acts was not detailed in the New York Times piece.

Carmi was quoted as saying of Negy’s methods and behavior that, “It sets a precedent that a professor can dictate religious beliefs, racism and all that just for a grade.”

Analysis: Negy is an academic and academics come to strong conclusions and speak confident, bold claims and opinions about research. At the same time, he had to realize that communicating what he did was ripe with risk.

Negy was going to greatly offend, be judged hostile, racist and untrustworthy and unfit for his role as a college educator. He recklessly rolled the dice anyway.

Many would say he earned his termination and all the misery that accompanied it. Those people might be right.

Or they might not be correct. Consider the context of a college setting, where different ideas are to be presented, discussed, debated, argued passionately and learning happens.

Should a professor be ridiculed and fired, suffering all that goes along with that loss, for presenting a strong argument that is offensive to others and one that feels false? Cannot critics make their own, hard-edged contrary arguments to add to the debate and possibly disprove points they find disagreeable or dangerous? Students in the United States are not shown to be sent to work camps or lose their lives for dissenting opinions.

To seek a person’s career ruin and personal mental health trauma seems in a way another form of now-socially acceptable violence and justified, yet contradictory infliction of trauma.

Negy survived. Will he enjoy staying at his restored role at his long-time employer? Maybe. Likely not. The suffering isn’t over there or in his life.

For now, however, he has some level of vindication, and to use the trendy word for situations like this, “justice.”

Negy won legally. On top of that, his reputation will be robust, maybe better than ever, with many in certain academic circles, certain media and segments of the public. He might even be portrayed as a hero by some.

Yet with other parts of society he will be judged as racist who was enabled by an arbitrator and thus, further empowered to society’s detriment. Any future public conflicts involving Negy, watch and note, will result in his past bringing brought up again to discredit him. He probably won’t care. It might hurt him though.

He should consider exercising greater caution in communications, realize he’s not invincible and learn to navigate with some wiser movement. He beat the odds this time around. He might not next time.

There are some additional actions he could pursue to heal some wounds yet I don’t see Negy being receptive to taking such measures.