WHEN DEI GOT HIGH ON ITS OWN SUPPLY

 

Drug lord, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia) gives important business advice to Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in the 1983 film, Scarface. His most memorable pearl of wisdom: Don’t get high on your own supply.

Jason Kilborn is not a character in a Robert Ludlum spy novel. He’s a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago Law School. While he is not a household name, he is more famous than he would like to be.

He would not be at all famous had it not been for the final exam he gave his students in December 2020 on the unsexy topic of civil procedure. Kilborn is a tenured professor who has taught at the university since 2010.

The exam included a hypothetical question that had been included in his previous final exams. This question presented a real-life scenario that essentially asked: What would you do if you were a lawyer in this situation?

This real-life scenario contained two real-life words that are not used in civil conversation. The first word is one I never use and never did use.  

One student’s reaction to those two words set off a cascade of events that placed Jason Kilborn’s reputation and career squarely on the DEI chopping block.

The hypothetical question had to do with a Black woman who quit her job and was suing her employer for fostering a hostile work environment. As the plaintiff in the case, she alleged that, in a meeting, other managers in the company had called her a “n _ _ _ _ _ _” (racial slur) and a “b __ _ _ _”. (rhymes with witch). Those words were intentionally not spelled out on the exam.

I can’t use the female student’s name because her identity has been kept anonymous. We only know that she was a member of the UIC Law School chapter of the Black Law Student Association (BLSA).

BLSA issued this statement about “the inexcusable usage of ‘n_____’ and ‘b_____’ words on the exam: “The slur shocked students, created a momentous distraction, and caused unnecessary distress and anxiety for those taking the exam.”

According to BLSA, one of their student members complained that seeing the two words on the exam had given her “heart palpitations.” We don’t know if this student had taken the exam or if she heard about it from another student. Did she suffer first-hand palpitations or second-hand palpitations?

BLSA jumped into action by circulating a petition with a list of demands, which included suspending the professor from teaching his classes. He was then summoned to meet with the law school dean where he learned that the dean sided with BLSA.

To put it mildly, Professor Kilborn was caught off-guard by the student response and by the dean’s reaction to that response.

He immediately issued a public apology for using the “offensive language" that he had previously used without incident and with the knowledge of the school’s administration.

Believing that there was a huge misunderstanding, Kilborn agreed to meet with a BLSA leader to try to clear the air. It was a Zoom meeting that lasted for about four hours. Kilborn’s impression of the meeting was that it was amicable and had gone fairly well. He breathed a sigh of relief.

And then he learned that the meeting had resulted in a new allegation against him that would get him suspended from his teaching duties and would cost him a scheduled annual pay raise.

About 90 minutes into the Zoom meeting, the BLSA leader asked Kilborn if the dean had shown him the written BLSA statement. Kilborn said the dean had not, and added that “maybe she’s afraid if I saw the horrible things said about me. I might become homicidal.”

The law professor, having been lulled into a false sense of mutual understanding, was joking. Big mistake! You don’t joke around with a DEI cop – even an unofficial, self-appointed DEI cop. Dropping his guard was a serious rookie mistake.

BLSA reported the “homicidal” comment to the university administration which determined that Professor Kilborn was a “safety threat,” barred him from setting foot on campus, and ordered him to meet with mental health professionals for an assessment.

When he was allowed to return to campus, his courses had been either canceled or reassigned and he learned that he was under investigation by the university’s Office of Access and Equity (OAE) – the official DEI cops.

The investigation uncovered an even more damning slur uttered by the professor. The allegation was made that a year before the exam question had generated the uproar, Kilborn referred to Black students as “cockroaches”.

Now BLSA had all the ammunition they needed to demand that the tenured professor be fired. Meanwhile, Kilborn left on a long-planned sabbatical, which I imagine he needed more than ever. In his absence,  BLSA conducted three campus rallies to pressure the administration to drop the ax on their undeniably racist professor.

One of the rallies featured a guest appearance from none other than the 80-year-old Reverand Jesse Jackson who, standing in solidarity with the protestors, proudly proclaimed: “Students deserve an environment that’s not hostile. We must act! We will act!”

Before being allowed to return to his classes, Kilborn had to agree to the satisfactory completion of a battery of required training courses that included eight weeks of diversity and sensitivity training, weekly 90-minute sessions with a diversity trainer, and submission of “self-reflection” papers.

 Self-reflection papers? Seriously?

Meanwhile, the cockroach allegation got legs. The allegation was covered by the local press and played up on social media. And without a shred of evidence, the university’s Office of Access and Equity verified that it was true.

And then, aha!

A recording of the incident surfaced. Kilborn had indeed used the word cockroaches. He used it in a class to describe plaintiffs seeking to profit by filing frivolous lawsuits. Race had absolutely nothing to do with it.

So, was the Office of Access and Equity embarrassed? Were they apologetic? Of course not. Did BLSA back off from the false allegation? Why would they? It gave them gotcha! material for their next grievance.

Professor Kilborn had not hidden his feelings about his persecution. He was angry and upset. And because he didn’t hide being angry and upset, he of course presented a threat to the university because he of course made some students feel unsafe.

Imagine how different it would have been had the university’s Office of Access and Equity guided the heart-palpitating student to the counseling she obviously needed instead of driving the professor to diversity and sensitivity training.

As a teacher and mentor, Kilborn’s objective was to send her and her fellow students into the world as mentally tough, savvy lawyers, prepared to defend their clients against the real-world ugliness that confronts real-world victims. Instead, he, himself, was portrayed as the ugliness that needed to be confronted.

Why did OAE and BLSA do it? The simple answer is: Because they could. They were flexing their muscles and they were riding a high.

After two years of being a DEI punching bag, Professor Kilborn sued five members of the UIC Law School administration in federal court, claiming violations of his First, Fifth, and 14th Amendment rights. The case is currently working its way through the courts.

Jason Kilborn continues to teach law at UIC.

And now I have two questions.

First, who is the primary victim in this story? Second, given the executive order of January 20, 2025, and the federal government's ongoing process of eradicating DEI, does the first question even matter?

I think it matters a lot and I will tell you why.

It was in a state of semi-horror that I watched the Watertown School Committee Meeting of March 21, 2022, on Zoom, at which a consulting company made a presentation, inspired by antiracist guru, Ibram X. Kendi, whose books were recommended on Watertown Public School’s website.

The consulting company used slides to highlight its “equity action plan.” Two sentences that popped out and permanently lodged themselves in my brain were:

“Adopt an equity decision-making framework through which all decisions are reviewed. In order to end individual, institutional, and structural racism and bias in the district, all leaders must consistently and intentionally apply an equity lens to every decision made.” (The highlighting is mine) The presenter acknowledged that this policy was already in place at WPS.

From my disbelief, this blog post was born.

WHEN IT COMES TO RACE, SHOULD OUR SCHOOLS BE TEACHING KIDS WHAT TO THINK INSTEAD OF HOW TO THINK?

I just reread that blog post and it nearly gave me heart palpitations. The title of that post is of course a statement thinly disguised as a question.

When kids are educated in a DEI cocoon, and then land in an institution of higher learning where, as a direct result of Trump’s executive order, DEI has now been wiped from their websites and mission statements − like Northeastern and UMass − and DEI offices have been closed or renamed, some of those students will experience culture shock.

How will they cope when they feel “unsafe” and realize there is no cavalry galloping to their rescue?

The law school student who experienced heart palpitations and all the students who were so shocked and upset by seeing the redacted words that it impaired their ability to take the exam were the real victims in the Jason Kilborn story, but not for the reasons they claimed.

Though battered and bruised, Jason Kilborn, like the true professional he is, will continue to do his job at a high level and prepare his students for real-world lawyering.

Students who, early in their educational journey, should have been taught the skills of critical thinking and media literacy to enable them to determine for themselves how to separate fact from fiction, make better decisions, solve problems, communicate effectively, and adapt to change are equipped for life.

Critical thinkers are more likely to be lifelong learners, who are more likely to be independent thinkers.

I would argue that these attributes make for real open-mindedness, which is the opposite of “Kendi-ish” single-lens indoctrination.

Is there a future for DEI? Will it be a rebranded, new and improved DEI with a fresh coat of paint, and maybe a new set of initials?

The last national election highlighted a widespread anger across racial and ethnic groups − white, black, and brown − making it painfully clear that many Americans feel undervalued, underrepresented, and underserved by their government.

Their anger is fueled by the dominance of progressive voices that claim to champion equality but often dismiss or overlook the struggles of working-class Americans of all races who don’t fit their ideological narrative.

This is an election year in the still somewhat townish and very diverse city of Watertown. How encouraging it would be to hear the voices of candidates for City Council and School Committee who believe that any future DEI should be colorblind and that the best answer to prejudice, born of ignorance, begins with teaching our children how to think and not what to think.

We should all be proud and grateful to the local leaders (along with the taxpayers) who gifted this community with shiny new schools. But if well-intentioned educators persist in their futile efforts to prepare the road for the child instead of the child for the road, those shiny new buildings will become symbols of a false promise.

Because, as many of us already know, there are times, when out of nowhere life blows up in your face – a phone call delivering terrible news, a sudden devastating job loss, a life-altering diagnosis, a tragic something that was nowhere on your radar screen. Perhaps all of the above.

 When life does blow up in your face, it just might require all the resourcefulness, resilience, and fortitude you can summon.

Most of you know this all too well, and you have the mental scar tissue as a reminder. 

You know first-hand what others have yet to discover.

That life is not for the faint of heart.

 

Bruce Coltin, The Battle For Watertown