A former Pennsylvania State University at Abington professor has filed a lawsuit after a college official told him, “There is a problem with the white race.”
Zack De Piero, a former English professor, claims that the university discriminated against him and violated his free speech rights when he complained about the school’s “race-based dogma and discrimination.” He resigned in August of last year.
Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) represents De Piero and says he was told to attend “antiracist” workshops for complaining about racial insults directed at white staff.
“When he complained about the continuous stream of racial insult directed at White faculty in the writing department, the director of the Affirmative Action Office told him that ‘There is a problem with the White race,’ that he should attend ‘antiracist’ workshops ‘until you get it,’ and that he might have mental health issues,” the lawsuit says, according to a report from the Daily Wire.
De Piero says he was also told to ignore poor academic performances from black and Hispanic students for “social justice” and to be “antiracist.”
FAIR says that he was also told to “penalize” some students’ scores to “equalize outcomes on the basis of race.”
“The logic of defendants’ demands required that DePiero also penalize students academically on the basis of race,” the suit alleges. “If, for example, students from East Asia or the Indian subcontinent excelled over other minority groups (who often had the same, if not lighter skin color), DePiero was asked to penalize them in order to equalize outcomes on the basis of race.”
One of the training videos the professor was forced to watch was called “White Teachers Are a Problem.
The complaint alleges, “Following the tragic murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the defendants’ ‘antiracist’ activism reached a new fever pitch.” His lawsuit cites emails from later that year, where defendants allegedly wrote that white employees should ‘Stop talking’ and directed writing faculty members to ‘assure that all students see that white supremacy manifests itself in language and in writing pedagogy.’”
“Penn State’s bizarre brand of ‘antiracism,’” the suit says, “condemns qualities like ‘objectivity’ as ‘white supremacy,’ and purports to celebrate people of color for being incapable of objective thought. The common denominator at Penn State and among all defendants is the promotion of pejorative stereotypes on the basis of race, which have created a hostile environment not only for DePiero but for all faculty and students.”
“The institutional intolerance that has become so prevalent in the academic space is extremely concerning to us and, you know, we want to champion someone like Zack, who has taken the brave and courageous step to stand up for his rights — and that translates to honoring the rights of his students to engage with … and receive the benefits from a full academic experience,” FAIR legal advocacy managing director Leigh Ann O’Neill told Inside Higher Ed.
A Penn State system spokeswoman told the outlet that “Penn State does not generally comment on pending litigation” and that the university “has repeatedly affirmed its active and ongoing commitment to diversity and equity, and made clear its goal to create an inclusive and respectful environment in which to live, work and study.”
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