WTW13: The "Settlement" That Wasn't

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode episode 13. that's my co-host, Remy. I'm Thomas Smith.

0:00:49 Thomas: Remy's on the show for a debunk. Naps. Do babies need them? Remy is here to say no.

0:00:55 Lydia: Yeah. We're gonna learn from the remster.

0:00:58 Thomas: I'm joined by Lydia Smith, and we are forced to record at a time when all of our kids are around. So this is the best we could do. You may hear from Remy, me, so we're about to go into part of Jason Kilbourne. It just keeps getting more and more fun, kinds of good stuff, but we wanted to jump in here to make a few little announcements. Actually, pretty cool cool announcements, little announcement, we've said this some places, I don't remember where Lydia is now full time with Serious Pod, that there's Woke and Serious Inquiries, only in different forms forms.

0:01:06 Lydia: Yeah, this am. Yes. Thank you for hiring me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

0:01:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I looked at all the applicants and just it's actually totally blind resume. This a sound financial decision? Absolutely no idea. But is it the only decision that could possibly be made? Yes, because I simply, as may have noticed, just cannot keep up with it anymore. Too much. It's too much work. Too much for one person to do. Back before I had a family, it was I could do anything. I accomplish anything. I All I do is just not talk to you and then just feel like I'll be working and then Just Go Work. But now I have too many people to not be able to talk to.

That doesn't work. So I found that I just desperately need help. And then it just so turned out that Lydia, uh, as she started taking this on a little bit to help out is just incredibly good at it. Both only behind the mic, but off the mic. Um, is just an incredible influence on the company as it were. And just the kind of thing where we it has to be done. I cannot continue creating all the podcasts that I want and need to create without you. And And so that's the decision that we're making. Lydia has left her job and she's now full time along with me.

0:01:44 Lydia: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Aw. Yeah.

0:02:45 Thomas: And that's a scary thing. And so I just, if you don't like us being very scared, please go to patreon.com/wherethereswoke or patreon. Com slash serious pod and support the show. Something you were, you know, on the fence about, if it was something stuff that you just hadn't gotten around to, uh, by all means, please do so.

Or, you know, if you, if you were going to do a pledge at it to get the, you Know, up in the tiers and get the bonus stuff, that'd be good. Speaking of bonus stuff. Uh, we've got some offerings. You may have noticed there was a monthly hangout that we were supposed to do on, both on shows. Know it's a newer thing. We're just getting started. And I, I just had not had the wherewithal to get it going.

But now that we've, got a full -time amazing hot employee, Lydia Smith, we're doing that. So this will be the first monthly hangout, October. Calling it a serious hang and we're going to combine it for both the shows. So because this is a top patron thing, so this is $5 and up patron event. This is a very intimate hang. We We are either going to answer your questions or, you know, I know how these things work. I know that we're already pairing this down to a small number of super amazing patrons and availability and scheduling being

0:03:51 Lydia: Yeah.

0:03:51 Thomas: What it is. If Lydia and I log in and it's just her and I, we're going to talk about things from behind the scenes. Like, so research we didn't get to for where there's woke possibly, what we're planning to do, irons in the fire, real behind the scenes info. It'll be a lot of fun. For SIO, we can talk about interviews we've booked or we're trying to book, know, you studies we want to cover. We've got, we've got a lot of behind the scenes stuff that'll be really fun to talk about. Yeah. We'll bring a curtain and we'll do that. So And, that'll Be, again, if you'd like to, you know, maybe, edit your pledge up a little bit to join us. We would love that. It's $5 and up patrons on either Patreon or, you know, if, it's both, you get to actually come be with us, come sit with us.

0:04:02 Lydia: Yep.

0:04:13 Lydia: Peek behind the curtain. Yeah.

0:04:30 Lydia: Yeah, we have a guest room. You can just move in. It's fine.

0:04:32 Thomas: Just live here. Yeah, no, um, be super fun. And I'm really excited for this. So it's October 26th and we try to do a time that works for as many people as we can. I know it's hard. There's so many time zones, but it also has to work for us as in we need people watching our kids while we do it. So, it has to be kind of during the daycare time. So. It's going to be at 3 p .m. Pacific. Hoping that catches some of the like, you know, almost happy hour Pacific time people, but then also East Coast time, you off work. You can have have a beer with us or something or a glass of wine.

0:05:02 Lydia: Yeah.

0:05:03 Thomas: We're hoping that's a good time. It's kind of the we think it's the Best of All Worlds. And if you're in some other time zone besides those two, well, you're on your own. Just do whatever you need to do, be super fun. There's one more little bonus thing to that, which is our top, top, top patrons of the final tier. If you would like to join that one, you get to play games with us. If you'd like, now we'll do a little sign up, we'll see if there's interest in this, and we're thinking some code names. So after this hangout, we will uh step aside to a private Zoom with anyone who wants to play game with us, play a little Code Names, um, horsepace.com, uh, start with that, and if, uh, you know, we'll we'll see how it goes. If people sign up and they want to play something else, we could always play something else. We'll see.

0:05:10 Lydia: Yeah.

0:05:32 Lydia: Little horse paste. Yeah.

0:05:42 Thomas: But that's available to the top patrons. I'll do a patron post that only you will see for your eyes only. Don't tell anyone about it where the interest in that. Do a little sign up. And would be super fun. So that's sort of the top level reward there to make sure we are giving our patrons as much as we can, because you really do make the show happen. Not you give both of us now the ability to do this. Work. And so much more we want to do and so much more we wanna look into and accomplish and FOIA.

0:06:09 Thomas: So many more people we wanna FOIA request.

0:06:07 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. I have so many FOIAs I want to do.

0:06:13 Thomas: FOIA the fuck out everybody, you know. You're gonna get FOIA, you're gonna FOIA everybody.

0:06:20 Thomas: So, yes, once again, October 26th, that's Thursday apparently, and that'll be our first one and we'll do this every month unless we have scheduled this for right when a Sharks game is, hun? So I've already... never mind, so this one's canceled, never mind, take everything back no it's okay I record it anyway they're gonna lose, a spoiler, they lost there, I already saved myself the time, they're

0:06:32 Lydia: Didn't consider the shark sketch. I was looking at all the other calendars. Yeah. Missed the hockey one.

0:06:44 Lydia: Or maybe we play the sharks game while we're on the hangout.

0:06:47 Thomas: Oh, I could do that, they are literally slated, they're predicted to be the worst team in the history of the energy. I'm not even joking. Like, they might be the worst team. That's what everyone's predicting. So, not going to miss much. Anyway, I'm excited for that. One And more, a little announcement. This one's actually the giantest of all for where there's Wokan. Although Patreon, in their infinite taken away the ability to actually set a patron goal, which is incredible to me. I don't, I don't, I do not know what the fuck they're doing over there. Oh, yeah, they took that away a few years ago, I think. It's the dumbest thing. That place is anyway, we're going to set a manual patron goal. We have set a annual patron goal, this is a listen up. This is actually a big one. If we hit a thousand patrons, Bosnick is going to come on and do his Gamergate essay. That's right. He has written an essay on Gamer gate. He was going to use it for one of his shows but nobody wanted that noise. I think we

0:06:57 Lydia: Cool.

0:07:14 Lydia: It literally took it away. Oh, my God. Hmm.

0:07:39 Thomas: Are the only ones who want to take on that sludge. And of course it's not just Eli doing his Gamergate thing, we also of course would do a WTW around GamerGate and incorporate Eli's essay into it. So if we hit a thousand patrons, folks, we're going to do Gamergate. And Eli has been working on this, this is not like a casual, he's going to come on and just like spout, he's been working on a detailed essay. He's, he literally told me he's like, yeah, I'm gonna make sure it's all like uh, and stuff for the patrons, so like that's another thing we'll do is we'll post the the version for the top patrons and

0:07:39 Lydia: We want it.

0:08:14 Lydia: Yeah.

0:08:14 Thomas: Stuff. Like this is a serious, this is Eli doing a serious thing, this is not. Yeah, this is like a real, so uh, .com slash where there's, will get us to a thousand and that will happen. Seriously, uh, Eli, Eli just never has to, he's got all done all this work and we'll be like, sorry, man, we'll just, we're, there's no place to do that. Yeah.

0:08:17 Lydia: Research project. Yeah.

0:08:28 Lydia: Gone. Yeah.

0:08:30 Thomas: Just throw it away. Just literally throw it in the trash. So that I am so excited. Thanks so much to Eli for agreeing to do this. 1 ,000 patrons. We can do it. Don't do it for me. Do it for Lydia Smith. All right. So So with those announcements aside, again, the hangout, we will put all this on Patreon and you'll see the posts, the Hangout, the games, the everything, the Gamergate. Thing. Once we hit a thousand patrons, all that aside, let's get to more of why Jason Kilbourne actually just sucks.

0:09:00 Lydia: He sucks.

0:09:01 Thomas: If you remember in part one, I taught, I read the fire thing. That's like the, him posing like fucking Superman man in front of the thing and they just had their big victory and their victory was they just agree I'll read that outline again. FIRE's new Defense Fund is here to save college faculty jobs, and we just closed our first case. Uh, August 31st, 2021. Is that article let what has happened before that is he's received the letter that I just kind kind of read you some of. Looks like they met June to the law school's response to the May 28th letter from the OAE conveying the results of the investigation. They met June 18, and now here's a letter from July 2nd, kind putting in writing what they've agreed to do here. Is pretty important.

Conclusions reached by OAE indicates a need on the law school's part to pursue the following course of action, which involves both A, requirements intended to address OAE's substantiation of conduct constituting a policy violation, and recommendations intended to address the matters about which OAE did not substantiate policy violations, but that I would like to address going forward in a collaborative, collegial manner. So A, here are the requirements as laid out by this letter.

For the next four semesters that you are assigned to teach one or more classes law school, if a student complains to you about a class session or an interaction with you and alleges racial or ethnic or similar conduct, you should immediately report that matter to the dean or dean's designee before you respond to the student, or to the class as a whole.

This process is intended to provide the law school and university with the opportunity to work with you to help you prepare an appropriate response and or develop other steps to resolve the situation in a collaborative fashion. At the end of these four semesters, the dean will determine whether this process should be extended, and if so, for how long. That seems fucking, that's nothing. That costs him nothing. That's, hey, if this ever

0:09:07 Lydia: Heroes Just

0:10:54 Thomas: Happens again, yeah, like, run this by us. Two, for the next four semesters that you are assigned to teach one or more classes at the law school, your class sessions will be audio recorded, and the law school will also exercise oversight by reviewing these audio recordings to help foster a non-discriminatory, non-harassing classroom environment. The dean will assign one or more appropriate faculty members to perform this oversight. The dean or dean's designee will address any matters of concern that are observed in any such class session recordings with you as soon as is practicable. At the end of these four semesters, the dean will determine whether this oversight should continue, and if so, for how long. Again, nothing. That's fine.

0:10:54 Lydia: A Hit to The ego, yeah. Especially Because all of his classes were being recorded Anyway.

0:11:37 Thomas: They were recorded anyway.

0:11:38 Lydia: Right. Now it's just about That Oversight Yeah, yeah. It's

0:11:38 Thomas: Yeah. Actively reviewed. Yeah, so that's nothing. I mean, I say that's nothing. That's fine. It's a fine step to take, but that doesn't cost him anything. Yeah. This isn't imposing really anything on him other than hate, don't be racist.

0:11:46 Lydia: A reasonable Thing Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And It's an observation, like, like a pretty typical experience for anyone in you professions and stuff. I know, like, K through 12, it definitely is you Know. Granted, it may not be every single class, but that is something that teachers are often used to. Someone, you know, sitting in if it's physically present and observing their class and providing feedback and stuff, right?

0:12:00 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:12:12 Thomas: And he already knew they were all recorded anyway, and He already would have assumed he's going to be under scrutiny from the students after that. Like, it's not adding any more scrutiny, really. Three, at the conclusion of the second semester, and this is the last requirement of this letter. At the conclusion, at which you are assigned to teach one or more classes, blah, blah. If the dean concludes that by virtue of your actions and conduct, you have not effectively maintained a non-discriminatory, non-harassing classroom environment, you will compete a training.

You complete a program designed by the dean. You will complete training program, designed and administered by Vantage LLC. The goal of the training will be to ensure that you appreciate the importance of your position, including your voice and authority in the classroom, and when assessing students, how your words and actions impact others.

You will be deemed to have completed the training program when Vantage Solutions provides a written report to the law school indicating that you have, one, engaged constructively in action planning and identified what you will do differently in class on assessments and when otherwise interacting with students orally and in writing, and two, developed the skills and tools to effectively engage with a diverse group of students on sensitive topics. Things, so that's the final recommendation, and that's if and only if he concludes, the dean concludes that you haven't maintained a

0:12:14 Lydia: You're not

0:13:21 Thomas: Non -discriminant yet then in addition, there are recommendations, and I'm not going to read all this. Actually, um, it's like, in during our meeting June 18th, we discussed the following recommendations, and keep in mind this is your boss recommending something, clearly he has tenure and he's pretty hostile toward his boss now, but he's in a fucking privileged ass position. There's no such thing as tenure for an Amazon worker. There is no such a thing as 10 year for most people in the fucking country. But he's in a super privileged position and he can just totally blow this off if he wants to. But his boss, his employer is saying, we encourage you to, you know, submit anything, any any exam you're going to do that's anything like this submitted to the dean first, et cetera, et et cetera. We encourage you to use the same approach when using grade bumps or anything like that. So it's like, this is based on the stuff that he wasn't found guilty of, but like, you

0:13:22 Lydia: Getting it. Yeah, yeah, right.

0:14:15 Lydia: You

0:14:15 Thomas: Knows, was maybe an issue. So, it's, like, hey, maybe run this stuff by us. This is a recommendation. And finally, here's number three. I'll read this one. Strongly encourage you to begin immediate participation in the small group study sessions designed by the Law School Faculty Committee for Diversity, Inclusion, and Campus Climate. The committee assigned you to a a group. You may join the group at any point. All faculty have access to the box folder with reading and viewing materials.

0:14:39 Lydia: A lot of these recommendations and kind of like next steps, right, that they're expecting of Kilbourne to take are protective of him too, right? It's putting them In a position where if there is you complaint, right, they're able to help advocate for him. So it's not, you know, he said, he or she said, you know, they said, um, and and you you choose to frame it that way, that's actually, uh, know, helpful resource now where he could, you feel a little more confident moving forward, um, he has sort of that support from his administration. Oh.

0:14:49 Thomas: Yeah, that's a good point.

0:15:15 Thomas: Let me read you the end of the fire article. That's the puff piece. That'S It's like him, oh, look it, we've closed our first case. I'm going to read you the last few paragraphs of that, keeping in mind what you just heard. God for the faculty legal defense fund, he said. FIRE gave me the comfort of public support and solidarity. The FLDF gave me this silver bullet of real legal action. Having a gladiator standing beside me and shaking his sword, that alone is enormously powerful.

The quote. Quote, through the fund, FIRE connected Kilborn with local attorney Wayne Giampietro. With help from the FLDF team at FIRE, the pair reached a resolution with UIC. Kilborn agreed to alert the dean before responding to student complaints about racial issues, and the audio of his classes would be recorded. Both stipulations Kilborn order to protect himself against spurious complaints, to your point, and one he'd already decided to take him independently. Kilbourne strongly objected to mandatory sensitivity training or signing a non -disclosure agreement that would have barred him from publicly commenting about the ordeal. He said it's thanks to the credible threat of action by an FLDF attorney that the administration's final resolution did not contain these elements. The resolution in my case was like most good compromises. It pleased no one, so it must have been the right one, he said. The average person doesn't enjoy fighting. If I enjoyed fighting, I would have remained a lawyer. I was tired of it, emotionally tired of it. I'm grateful for FIRE's backing, both moral and financial, without which I don't know how I would have made it through the hell of these last six months.

0:16:06 Lydia: My Gosh

0:16:42 Thomas: Kilborn lamented that he didn't get his day in court to fully vindicate his rights, but he wanted to get back in the classroom and move on to training the next generation of lawyers. The fund puts faculty in the driver's seat, and if they and their counsel find a settlement that works, they never even have to go to court. Quote, what FIRE and the Legal Defense Fund gave me is the ability and the credibility to go the administration and defend my rights, he said. I had a lawyer standing Standing beside me, ready to act, even if we decided to take no action. And that means a lot. That sound like, yeah, agreed to do basically what they said anyway. Like

0:16:42 Lydia: Pretty Much

0:17:13 Thomas: It doesn't, you know, yeah.

0:17:13 Lydia: A Majority Of it, yeah, did

0:17:15 Thomas: Sounds like maybe he leveraged this fucking nonsense to get out of a mandatory training. So that's, so the fire .org is boasting that they, you know, we closed our first case. And by the way, the other articles reference that as a settlement. Like, is it a settlement if you're employer is like, hey, man, you fucked up. Here's what we're going to require you to do. And he's like, I'm going to sue if you make me do a training program. They're like, oh, fucking all right, man. Here's what will do. And it's they agree to some stuff.

0:17:48 Thomas: I feel like a settlement is like it's not a settlement. If there was never a legal complaint, right? Right. Like, isn't a settlement like you sue and then you settle? It's not, hey, we might sue you. So let's agree to something. That's not a settlement, but whatever. Maybe it is. I just feel it feels funny to me. It feels like the only reason I bring it up is I think it's fire trying to, like, bolster their like this defense fund closed a case. Yeah. And it's like, no, man, you something that was like going to be like a one out of 10 punishment into like a point seven out of ten punishment. Like, OK, cool.

0:17:47 Lydia: Yeah, just a negotiation, right?

0:18:04 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, they're cred.

0:18:20 Lydia: Yeah,

0:18:20 Thomas: Anyway, might be wondering then what happened? You know, like, why wasn't that the end of the story? The way Kilborn tells it, under pressure from, you and Jesse Jackson, UIC reneged on its agreement with Kilborn. It is true that when news broke that he was returning, Balsa was not happy. October 29th, they start a new petition and that one has 790 signatures. The next goal is listed as a thousand. So, you know, a little more attention. Mention.

And it is true that I think Jesse Jackson interacted with it. Know, there's some like couple local TV interview type things. And I mean, look again, are flaring, but see how out of bounds you think this is. This is in a, by the way, Change.org petition by the, by Balsa and stuff. "Last year, an investigation opened up about a tenured professor at UIC that repeatedly made racist comments and participated in discriminatory practices both within and outside the classroom.

This is not only about his language choice in an exam. He has made racial comments in the classroom, he has directly contacted students who felt profiled by him, he has used threats of homicide, he has interviewed on media platforms alluding to the idea that he has done nothing wrong." Threats of homicide is the one thing you could say like, all right, but yeah, I mean, he kind of did. It. Like that's barely overstating it.

By the way, this one, uh, the use of the word "redacted." So it, you acknowledges that, the that words were redacted in the exam. It continues, "While UIC law conducted an investigation into to his discriminatory practices, Professor Jason Kilbourne was placed on administrative leave. The investigation was prompted by Kilbourne's choice to use redacted versions of the N-word and the B-word on" This happens to be the only instance of wrongdoing Kilbourne seems to acknowledge.

0:20:04 Thomas: Though the bottom line of it. "The Black Law Student Association calls on black students and allies to demand the prompt removal of Jason Kilbourne from UIC School of Law. In addition to a multitude of other relevant demands, we seek a safe, non-hostile classroom environment." The way he tells it, this, and, and with Jesse Jackson's help, has you intimidated the the school.

The worst quote they have, and I would put this in the category of you found a student who said perhaps a dumb thing, quote, "When asked by the Chicago Crusader if it is true that Kilbourne called black law students cockroaches, the president of BALSA said, yes, he did.

There are reports that came out of the Office of Access Equity that have everything that he has done from the claims all the way to what has been sustained and confirmed that he is done." And And those discrimination tactics he's used over the years. Funny is their own puff piece didn't include the more damning quote from that student, but I tracked it down. The interview goes on.

"When asked if it's true that Kilborn called black law students cockroaches," which is, you know, that's objectively not what he did. He didn't call black law students cockroach. "She said, in what context would Kilbourne have called black law students cockroaches? Shannon said, I'm not sure. His fight came long before my association got here. I just became the president this past month, but even Kim Cross works with me consistently." And she was the past president, she can attest to where those claims are from.

"Our job as the Black Law Student Association is that we promote the needs of black students. It doesn't take a mass amount of people to say what that has happened to them under these professors' leadership. But when those students came forth, we don't ask every question. We ask some questions and we fight for them, Shannon said. The administration has ignored them, but what the Office of Access and Equity has done is to confirm those allegations." So that's like the worst quote of a student in this.

You know, that's someone saying, yeah, well, I wasn't even here. You know that's the new president of Balsa. I wasn't even here, but I understand he called black students cockroaches, which he didn't. He so I can understand him not being super happy that he's still being protested in this way. But note that one of the reasons people are still mad at him is he's gone on this spree of interviews saying he did nothing wrong and only acknowledging the fucking exam question.

0:22:12 Thomas: So like, who's to blame here, my dude? This could have been killed by him. He could have done with all this very easily, many times over. And here's where that who, again, I think that is not a great quote. Here's where they do, I think, say something pretty fucking reasonable that isn't included in that article. When asked who is responsible for voting him out of the university, Shannon said, because he's a tenured professor, he would have to go against the entire UIC system.

It would take the provost of the University, the chancellor, the vice chancellor, and the dean of the law school to appeal to the board of trustees as well as the the greater UIC system, and And vote him Out. What they are failing to do is even start that process, she said. Termination takes a long time. Also, severe sanctions take a very long time, and neither one has been discussed among the university members, Shannon said. Keep that in mind. She is responding.

Again, she's a little bit ahead of her skis on some of the stuff or whatever. Whatever, but she's responding to the fact that this is very much a, could you even call this a slap on the wrist? Like the agreement they actually came to? I'd barely even call that a slap. Barely.

0:22:12 Lydia: Yeah, many times over.

0:23:18 Lydia: I think they have a right to say, you know, this isn't sufficient. Have that conversation and kind of raise those concerns. That's absolutely within their rights yeah fire .org And

0:23:21 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah. You know why? Because we live in fucking America. Freedom of speech, fire .org. This fucking student, again, these are students. He's a fucking professor. He's an old man. He's grown ass man. These are students they have the right to say, eh, we think this guy should be fired. That's your right as an American to fucking say that.

0:23:43 Lydia: Also acknowledging that it's unlikely to come to pass, right, that that, that might not necessarily be the outcome that happens, however much you may want that to be, but you think that the process itself is worth pursuing. Um, let's just dive into it, maybe there's additional investigation, additional interviews, maybe the, a student that wouldn't speak to OAE would come forward and speak in that scenario, maybe, who knows, but think it's understandable to say we don't feel that this is sufficient, and what we want is to continue to have this conversation with actual potential consequences, knowing that the threshold for that would be pretty high, but we still want to, you, that that off and start having those conversations.

0:24:29 Thomas: Completely reasonable to me. Now, this is where I'm going to come back to the fact that these fucking institutions are very conservative, because Here's All that happened. So you've got them with Jesse Jackson joining a protest, saying this guy should be fired, etc, etc. Is he fired? No. Do they even start the process? No. Do they do fucking anything? Well, barely, because here is is what happens. Now that happens, is he's denied a two percent merit -based salary increase, and so he Karens it up. He has his attorney for fire, email, mail, or whatever, write a letter.

"Dear Dean Spanbauer and Chancellor Bills, am counsel to Professor Jason Kilbourne, who has brought to my attention the notification to him that he has failed to meet the school's criteria for a merit -based salary raise.

I have been aware of the school activities in responding to to a a student's complaint, that that somehow Kilborn had violated the school's policy 1100 -004, did not become directly involved in those proceedings because it appeared that you had decided to treat that complaint as providing no basis for any significant adverse action against Professor Kilborn." Okay, that's a weird way to, you that.

Like the fact that they got a good deal because of being a huge pain in the ass, not the same as saying that means the other side acknowledges there was no there there. No, that's them probably being like, fucking, all right, man, whatever. "Dean Spanbauer's letter of July 2nd sets forth a result of the meeting," and that's the letter I basically read to you, "that you had with Professor Kilbourn, along with Associate Dean, blah, blah.

In the letter, the dean expressed a desire to move forward and address the issues in a collaborative, collegial manner, as well as setting forth numerous positive and excellent accomplishments of Professor Kilbourne in his teaching and collateral activities in the school." What? Didn't actually see that in the letter. I don't know what that's talking about. That's weird. "Therefore, it was with great astonishment that I read Dean Spanbauer's message of September 6th to Professor Kilbourne, basing the refusal to

0:24:36 Lydia: Yeah. And

0:26:25 Thomas: The findings of the OAE regarding that student complaint. That base any decision on findings such as those issued by that committee is indeed shocking. The report issued by that entity is a model of illegal and unlawful conduct, sir, am I being detained? That's what this reads to me as, of which any law school, oh no, I love the language they dip into. "To, the report issued by that entity is a model of illegal and unlawful conduct of which any school of law should be ashamed. The proceedings of the OAE violated Professor Kilbourne's due process rights by, among other things, relying upon anonymous statements to which he was never given an opportunity to respond. Further, any fighting a violation of school rules of policy for the reasons in that report is an egregious violation of his First Amendment rights." What you Must

0:27:19 Lydia: This is all, this is all for three grand.

0:27:23 Thomas: For two percent. "Basically, you must be aware of the numerous entities which have expressed outrage that an adverse action of any kind be taken upon such a basis. Indeed, those findings have caused UIC to be identified as one of the ten worst colleges for free speech." More on that later, that's just this lawyer basically saying what FIRE has done as Evidence. Like, okay. OK, cool.

0:27:23 Lydia: Yeah, check out our database.

0:27:44 Thomas: Yeah. And I don't know if he specifically works for FIRE, or FIRE might have just paired him with Kilborn. But fucking, all right, man, that's why I wrote this blog, or someone I know wrote this vlog, saying you suck. "Is clear that while you wish Professor Kilborn to move forward in a collaborative, collegial manner, the school wishes to do nothing of the kind.

Rather, you clearly intend to continue to violate Professor Kilburn's constitutional rights by continuing to penalize him for actions which are worthy of no penalty of any kind." That a school which purports to teach the law is intentionally ignoring the provisions of both the United States and the state of Illinois constitutions is outrageous to say the least. Who didn't get a 2% raise because he was found to have created a harassing environment to black people, essentially to black students. Don't think that you're allowed, like any action taken against him is a violation of the constitution. Like, what a fucking hyperbolic sack of shit. I demand that you take the following actions. Rescind and remove from Kilbourn's file your letter of February 2nd. Rescinde and remove the letter dated February 17th, notifying him of the commencement of the investigation. Rescide and remove, from Kilbourns' file, the findings letter. Revise Professor Kilbourne's annual evaluation letter to remove any reference to any purported policy violation.

Rescind the action denying Professor Kilbourne the merit -based raise, which he has clearly earned, and grant him that raise. Failure to grant the relief requested will leave us no alternative but to take the appropriate legal action to enforce Professor Kilbourn's constitutional rights, which you have so egregiously violated. And So, they get really forceful here, hun. If we are forced to file suit, we will not only name the school, but also the school officers and employees who have participated in violating his constitutional rights.

0:28:30 Lydia: So crazy. Oh, scary.

0:29:30 Thomas: In addition to recompense for the harm he has suffered, we will also request the court to award Professor Kilbourne punitive damages since the rights you have violated are well settled. And in addition, his costs and attorney's fees in prosecuting that action. I look forward to your prompt response.

0:29:31 Lydia: Good

0:29:50 Thomas: Don't even think the school responded. There's the next thing we have is from November 11th. And this is the so-called reneging or whatever. Like in keep mind that the demands are like fire this fucking guy, start the process. And all the school is doing, and in addition to receiving, like, how much of a pain in the fucking ass is this asshole and he's making, you know, media rounds and he is having his lawyers send like real fucking Karen drive-thru Wendy's style letters of like, "How dare you not grant me my 2% raise that I justly deserve for, even though I fucking am a piece of shit and suck in every way." What they said November 11th, so that's nearly, what is it, a couple months later, uh, don't see any response to that bullshit. You written in crayon. Yeah.

0:29:49 Lydia: Day. So Yeah Yeah.

0:30:33 Thomas: Two months later, "I am writing in reference to my letter to you of July 2nd that set forth certain requirements." And I'm not, actually, I won't read this whole thing, but effectively, here's the, is quote, "I very recently learned that you have been unable to participate in this law school training because the group you were are assigned to has not regularly met." Light of the fact that this training opportunity was not fully made available to you as expected through no fault of your own, you are now preparing to return to the classroom this spring without training in the critical topics covered by the small group sessions.

Meanwhile, the situation at the law school remains fraught, and it is important to minimize the possibility of further incidents and disruption to the educational experience of our students. I have considered this matter and must now require that you participate in an individualized training or coaching program of of my letter before the start of the Spring 2022 semester. You will be required to successfully complete this individualized learning no later than December 10, 2021, before returning to the classroom to teach your Spring 2022 assigned classes.

I will be in in touch in the coming days with more detailed information. Understand that this training is not a punishment or past conduct. Rather, it is intended to afford you an opportunity for having better success in the future as a member of the faculty in our law school, which has a very diverse student body. It is intended for you to be able to learn more to help assure that the learning environment that your students experience is a positive one.

The requirements and recommendations in my letter of July remain in place, except, except as modified by this letter, and so long as you adhere to those requirements and act in good faith upon my prior recommendations, as well as following the above requirement, you will be deemed to be in compliance with your obligations in this matter. Want to note a couple things.

For one, the fact that the dean is just modifying their agreement at will, doesn't that suggest that, but like, he didn't really like gain a settlement from them that was, you know, like, if you have a settlement, that means like, fuck, all right, we found a settlement.

0:32:29 Lydia: Signed it.

0:32:29 Thomas: Yeah, like this very much reads like he has been making a big deal and FIRE has been taking a lot of money. He's been making it big deal about this quote unquote settlement. But it sounds like this makes me think it's more than just the dean of the law school being like, yeah, all Right. Here's what we want you to do. And him being like OK, you Know, it's pretty much that. And secondly, look at it this way. Balsa and Jesse Jackson and those people are demanding he be fucking fired. And your dean comes to you and says, we're now going to just require that you complete this little course. And this is not a punishment. This is just to, you know, things are kind of tense. Let's do this.

0:32:29 Lydia: Yeah yeah.

0:33:03 Lydia: And And this other thing that, you know, we had suggested hasn't been made available to you. Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:06 Thomas: Yeah. Any non -fucking asshole would be like, whew, avoided that one. Here it is. These people are asking for my head, and my dean, who is being fucking unbelievably kind to me in this moment, is saying, "Just complete this fucking training course, dude, that's it, and then you're good to teach," like is bending over fucking backwards for this asshole. And now we're going to transition firmly into the "is an asshole" segment combined with the legal fallout section, kind of the end of this story, the last bit of this story.

0:33:13 Lydia: Yeah.

0:33:38 Lydia: More of an asshole? More?

0:33:43 Thomas: There's a lot more. There's just more revealing that he's an asshole. It's been ever -present, but yeah, there's a a lot and, and including, I know just in case I haven't teased it, including a bonus deep history thing I found that is so good. I cannot wait to read it to you.

0:33:44 Lydia: Oh boy. Okay, okay. We've always known. Yeah. Oh god.

0:34:04 Thomas: It's the, I've been, I haven teasing Lydia with this for what? A couple of days. Like I can't even, it's just, it'S, it's tantalizing, downright tantalising.

0:34:08 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, just you wait.

0:34:16 Thomas: Blinking my eyelashes and holding secret documents that I can't tell you about, Yet, it's It's ah, it's good. Okay, before that, we last left off with him getting a fucking amazing deal from his dean, essentially, like, People want his head, Jesse Jackson's, you, the pictures.

0:34:20 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:30 Lydia: Jesse. Jackson's.

0:34:34 Thomas: Yeah. I was gonna say, he's kind of, he's kinda there, he's, he's very old, but, but he's there, people

0:34:35 Lydia: There, like, But If He's like showing up and protesting you, like, as a person, I, uh, yeah, that would probably make some sort of impact.

0:34:47 Thomas: Want him fired, people want to start the firing process. And his dean, despite, despite everything that this asshole has put the school through, the dean's like, "All right, you're going to need to actually do this training program because, you know, you were supposed to do this other one. It didn't start. That wasn't your fault. It wasn't available. But now we are going to require you to do it." I found something. Oh, this is good, hon.

Even this is, this is what's so hard about this work, because it's impossible to know when you're done. And truly, you're never done. Like, I could just keep reading, reading, re-reading, and I found something that I hadn't noticed the first 400 times I read it, and it's related to something I already had kind of sniffed out, you know, and uh, maybe it'll be a little pat on the back because you made the point that, like, if the dean is just kind of modifying their deal unilaterally, like, is that, and so we saw FIRE.org and Kilborn, you, this settlement they reached, you know, this agreement they reached, all that stuff, like, literally did a puff piece press release about it, an article about it, about how truly their heroes for helping him get this settlement, blah, blah, blah, well, out this sentence that I didn't notice the first 400 times from the UIC press release that

0:34:49 Lydia: Okay. Yeah.

0:36:01 Thomas: Came kind of in the wake of, around now, so, so it's in chronological order. I just hadn't, I hadn't gotten to this yet in, in telling you that, is, I, there, in the story, and I go to reread it again to, like, tell you about it, and I noticed the sentence I hadn't noticed before. This is a little press release on the website, UIC Today, uh, you know, like the college website, and it's a, well, maybe I'll read just a little bit of of it to give you a flavor of what, what it's essentially saying. This is November 30th, 2021, this is after the deal, this after the unilateral modification of the deal, the, this next thing, essentially, in the story.

"Over the last few weeks, there's been interest and concern expressed by internal constituencies, external groups, and media regarding the discrimination and harassment complaint filed against the UIC law professor and the subsequent investigation by the university's office for access and equity.

We believe it is important to share with you the facts of this matter to ensure accurate information is broadly accessible and to address questions that have have been raised by the partial release of complaints, the OAE Internal Investigation Report, Freedom Act by the media, and subsequent administrative measures. A step-by-step summary of the filed complaints, the process that investigators followed, the findings reported," and this is the link. They're just introducing the link that, remember, I tried to start this box account and get, and I couldn't get, and then you finally found it for me.

0:36:20 Lydia: Yeah. Uh,

0:37:20 Thomas: That's just talking about that. That fostering an environment conducive, blah, blah, blah. You get the picture. They're just like kind of telling people what's going on. Below that note from Chancellor Emeritus, if that's how you pronounce it, is, I this is like maybe a section of the investigation reports, like a little bit of the Investigation Report or something, or it's maybe just further information. Basically, you another summary of the Investigation Report. It's not the whole thing. So it's weird. I don't don't know exactly what this is, but anyway, it talks about outcomes. It talks about like some other stuff. And I just noticed in the small print, the last sentence of outcomes after, again, keep in mind the big deal the fire made about the settlement, all the times you've heard that reference. You ready for this one? Last sentence. UIC law administration did not enter into an agreement with Professor Kilbourne regarding the above requirements and recommendations. He was informed in writing of the measures to be taken, and he acknowledged receipt and understanding of them.

0:37:28 Lydia: -huh. Wow.

0:38:21 Thomas: Oh, how good is that? My God. What an asshole. It's so funny. It's not. There wasn't a deal. That's why, like, fire

0:38:25 Lydia: How disingenuous a FIRE too, I mean, it's one thing for, like, this guy, that's really messed up

0:38:32 Thomas: Sucks. That is part whatever five of this. Fire fucking sucks. We will get to FIRE, hun. Oh, we will. Fire fucking sucked, sucks, um, try to, you know, launder their reputation by doing some amount of good work, and fine, that's better than not doing that, um, but they fucking suck, and this is an embarrassment, like, an absolute embarrassment, and we've barely even touched the tip of the iceberg with this, but FIRE is the one who's behind their lawsuit, as you already know, and we're going to get to the status of all that, and played, like, some of this interview, I've even played parts of this, but I very surgically, uh, you know, I've kind of kept some stuff to, for the storytelling purposes, and now we're gonna hear, we're just gonna hear fucking Killborn unfiltered, and we're just gonna get all this, I've been in protecting him from you, from your scrutiny to tell the story.

But now we're going to, we're going to hear it all. Kilbourne Cause does start doing that program that they ask him to do. He starts doing it. And so I'll Let Him Tell What Happens, including what he thinks is like a major gotcha, hun. Get ready for this. This is a big... He's got us. He's Got Everybody.

0:38:36 Lydia: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:39:15 Lydia: I

0:39:34 Clip: Course put together by Cornell University, which was frankly not that terrible. But they also, of course, wanted to make it more burdensome and painful for me, and so they assigned a series of these supplemental readings, which concentrate on race. The Cornell program is quite balanced, and it focuses on diversity in every respect, gender, ethnicity, background, ability, a variety of other aspects. But UIC is obsessively, frankly, focused on race and race alone, to the exclusion of everything else.

0:39:44 Lydia: Geez.

0:40:02 Thomas: Buddy, you get in trouble for discriminating against people's financial background? Or was it because of race, you idiot? Why? Yeah, I love this. You're, thing you're trouble for is about race, and you're like, yeah, no, so the Cornell one was great because it, you know, is about everything, but this UIC, they're obsessed with race. Yeah.

0:40:21 Lydia: They They really got stuck on that race thing.

0:40:24 Thomas: Man, that's what you got in trouble for. It's like, if you you, so you're a construction worker and you drop a crane load of bricks on someone and they're like, okay, well, you gotta, you gotta do some training before you can come back. And you're like, all these trains are about crane safety. Fucking assholes. Why are you so obsessed with crane? There's other things at the workplace.

0:40:44 Thomas: It's like, yeah, man, but what you did involve that.

0:40:43 Lydia: Yeah, so

0:40:48 Clip: They send these supplemental readings, which by and large concentrate on racial issues. The very first thing that they sent me on, like, page five, was talking about, you know, some situation, and they, for example, you know, a white person who is overly friendly to black people might be called a quote, "in space lover." Like My eyes bugged out of my head, I'm like, you've subjected me to a year long relentless campaign of torment because I wrote "in space" on my exam, and now the very first reading that you give me says there's space" in it. Like, this is clearly normative, I clearly did nothing wrong, this clearly was at best a colossal misunderstanding, and yet here we still are. And And my lawyer just sent this thing right back to them and said, "Listen, we demand an explanation as to why the very first supplemental reading you're assigning to this guy contains the very alleged horrific sin that you have been relentlessly tormenting him about for a year." Not surprisingly, we haven't received an answer.

0:41:56 Thomas: So, uh、 that's a clear gotcha, right, hun? Do you have any, any response to that? He's got us. We're dead to rights with that, with that bulletproof point.

0:42:04 Lydia: Mean, I guess some of my questions would be, the uh, you, not just a random exam question that he, a 23 year old individual, and, and to read this and respond to an exam question, it's literally, you, bias training and discrimination training and, you, Anti -harassment stuff, right? Like, it might be more relevant. But I, yeah, I'd be curious about the context of exactly what's being, you know, presented there.

0:42:31 Thomas: Here's the problem with this whole point, um, that's not what the whole thing was about, he's lying. It's not about the exam question, they said, we've, I've read you 50 times where they're like, this is not about the fucking exam question, you idiot, it's a, yeah, that's part of it, but it's also mainly, like, they even say it's particularly about your response, your intimidation of students who signed a petition, think about how intimidating that was to, is just so out of bounds for a professor to do, he got in trouble for that and a few other things, and, and overall, the preponderance of the evidence being, he created a, you know, bad environment in those ways, and he was guilty of harassment, particularly in his response to these students, it, it's, it's not about the fucking exam, dude, he's just lying at this point, know, you, I know, he knows that he's just lying, he knows it's not a lie, it's either he believes all this and he's completely committed to, you, his own alternate reality, could be, or he's just knowingly lying, there's no other option, he's been told in writing in no certain terms, dozens, silly, it's honestly silly, and it's silly that anyone goes along with this, let alone an organization dedicated to free speech, that's going to put hundreds of thousands of dollars, not an exaggeration, hundreds of 1000s of dollars at least in legal fees to fight for this guy for what, because he got denied a two percent raise that was, again, a merit raise, so, you know, you need merit to get, you should show merit, and something that doesn't show merit is being essentially guilty of creating a hostile environment for your students, that's

0:42:36 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:44:10 Thomas: What you're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars over for his three thousand dollar rate, you know, like, it's it's just preposterous, absolutely preposterious. So, um, of that, he sent that, and I love that he's like the school didn't respond. Yeah, you know why they didn't respond? Probably because they wiped their fucking ass with it's nothing, it's nothing, doesn't matter. Oh, you would, I demand sir, at dawn, you know, they get in this formalized language, what is the explanation for this, that this contains the thing they're probably like, fucking who cares, I'm not not even answering that, doesn't matter, so obvious, how many more times, how many more times should we say, hey man, it wasn't the exam question, it was everything else.

0:44:16 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. We're going to send you to active listening seminars next.

0:44:53 Thomas: You just signed up, sign yourself up for five more trainings. I mean, there's so many exaggerations, it's hard to, you know, I'm not gonna call them all out, but putting him through hell for a year, like, complex, yes, he had a rough time, I'm sure, because he's fucking nuts, but there was a whole period of like several months, like six months, where nothing happened, and then the end result is a the most minor slap on the wrist that you can imagine, and everyone wants him fired, but his dean essentially sticks up for him, even though he doesn't recognize it, and only wants him to do this training he's now trying to do, right now, the timeline. He's had a, had a pretty good, in my mind, he could just shut the fuck up and go about his life and it'd be fine. No, of course. And for whatever reason, maybe just again, as a, as of getting, seeing some more puff pieces about him, or the fire .org being willing to shell out the dough, whatever it is, he's suing, he sues, his complaint goes, goes live, that's actually what this interview is about, and

0:45:05 Lydia: Dramatics. Yeah. Mm -hmm.

0:45:55 Lydia: Crazy.

0:45:56 Thomas: So let's hear him talk more about it, because it's just, it's delightful, it's absolutely delightful. Okay.

0:46:02 Clip: Quite a number of these kinds of cases that are based on the first basis in my lawsuit, which is the first, I'll explain that in a second, but it's extremely rare, actually, to see the kind of complete abject failure to follow the most basic rules of fairness here, which we call due process. Uh, and the university has completely fallen in space on that score as well, so that's another basis. They've completely violated my academic freedom, that's another basis.

So there's a lot going on, but but but I do think it's fair to encapsulate the lawsuit as being a First Amendment lawsuit. First Amendment, as everyone, I think, probably well understands, is you can't be punished by a public actor for your speech. And immediately you've got to recognize, as I'm sure many people are responding, well, you know, you can't just say whatever you want, right?

If you just yelled out at some student in the back, hey, you, you know, and then used that word, you wouldn't be protected. Of course I wouldn't beat. And this is the common reaction I'm seeing in comment blog fields, you know, I'm like, no moron, you've got to understand that the First Amendment

0:47:06 Lydia: Wow.

0:47:06 Clip: Has built-in restrictions. I'm not suggesting, and no reasonable person ever would, that the First Amendment allows me to say whatever I want, but

0:47:14 Thomas: Would like to read for a little from the complaint to contrast something, real quick. Let one of the counts, which again, I'm not a lawyer, this is not a law show, but, uh, I have some experience, um, in one, one of the counts that's about, you know, that him fucking, am I being detained, number two, or whatever, yeah, you know, he's, the the complaint is against the university, every, all the people involved in their individual capacity and their official capacity, well, I'm not going to break down all that stuff, there's a lot of legal nuance, I'm going to go through some of it, but I just wanted to read you one sentence, um, that, part of it, since academic freedom protects plaintiff speech, that speech cannot lawfully be found to violate OAE's policy in a way that could lead, lead to the punishments meet it out to plaintiff.

Plaintiff has the right to advance his pedagogical goals as he sees fit within the confines of state and federal anti-discrimination law. Nothing he did or said violates any law. Therefore, neither OAE or any of the defendants can lawfully arrogate to themselves the power to declare that plaintiff cannot teach his course as he sees fit.

I just want to ask you, do you see any daylight there between, well, of course I can't say whatever I want, moron, and that, because that sounds to me like as long as you didn't say anything that literally breaks the law, you can't, like, the the

0:48:34 Thomas: His employer yeah has no ability to say like, hey man, maybe don't be really shitty in a bunch of different ways, as long as it doesn't violate the literal law, would mean that he could say whatever he wants short of breaking the law, and his employer could do nothing about it. Does that seem right?

0:48:34 Lydia: Then you have that latitude. Yeah.

0:48:55 Lydia: That seems a little insane. I,

0:48:57 Thomas: For example, I don't see why he couldn't read racist propaganda in his class. Like, why would that? It's pedagogically. It's what I need to do. And obviously not the standard. Like, for sure, the campus, you now, I am not, again, I 'am not a lawyer and maybe there are more restrictions than I would think by the law, but it would be pretty insane to me if they could do nothing. Like, they can't even, by the way, keep in mind what they did. And this is part of the legal calculation that I died laughing thinking a jury, this is not getting anywhere near a judge, that a judge probably or somebody, I guess, would decide what did in terms of the irrigating, the ability to punish him. He had to do a fucking training. That's it. He had a little training. That's all. Literally all he had to be able to do was do a little bit of training.

0:49:02 Lydia: Yeah, right. Yeah okay.

0:49:46 Thomas: Do a little trading, buddy. That's that. Law actually does not go for his bullshit. I don't think as much as he does. I mean, I think from my experience, a judge is going to be like, really, that's what you're saying. Violated your freedom of speech. The fact that you had to like a training, like imagine. So any training is like compelled speech against your whatever is what you'RE saying. Cause that's like compelled speak. That's again, you know, it's ridiculous. And here's where he says something that is downright jaw dropping to me. And Want to play this, get your feelings, get your reacts.

0:50:18 Clip: Is an absolute hack job of an investigation by an investigator who herself was the president of the Black Law Students Association at her law school when she was in law school, two or three years before joining this investigation. I mean, it's not a conflict of interest directly, but it clearly is a reason for people to say, say, hmm, do we really expect that person to be free, entirely a bias against Professor Kilgore, and sort of take a sort of straightforward approach to this investigation? That's clearly not what happened here.

0:50:50 Thomas: That remind you of anything you can think of?

0:50:51 Lydia: Okay.

0:50:53 Clip: You are saying he can't do his job because of his race, that not the definition of racism? I don't think so at all. No? No. He's proud of his heritage. I respect him for saying he can do his jobs because of it. Look, he's proud for his heritage, okay? I'm going to do it all. No, I think I'm gonna do very well. Why am I going to do well with Hispanics? Because I'm going to bring back jobs. And they're going to get jobs right now.

They're going to get jobs. I think I'm gonna do very well with the Hispanics. But we're building a wall. He's a Mexican. We're building the wall between here and Mexico. The answer is, he has given us very unfair rules. Rules that people can't even believe. This case should have ended years ago on summary judgment. The best lawyers, I have spoken to so many lawyers, they said, this is not a case. This is a case that should have been ended.

And this judge is giving us unfair, youngs now say, yeah, well, I wanna, I'm good with the law, okay, and it's a war between Mexico, not another country, but he's alive, he's not from, my opinion, he's from Indiana, he's

0:51:53 Lydia: Oh.

0:51:53 Clip: Mexican Mexican heritage, and he's very proud of it. Government

0:51:57 Thomas: That remind you of that at all? At first, I do this translation and it's, you know, probably a deep character flaw of mine where I hear things not quite as horrible as people put them at first. I'm trying, just out of the principle of charity, to be... I heard it as like the first time I watched this, I just heard it as, Oh, she was president of this organization at this school or something. I was like, Oh yeah, okay. Yeah. That's yeah. Okay. I guess that's, that's a little bit, listen again. He, cause he keeps, he starts at a place and then he keeps like becoming more and more like Trump. Like he starts who was the president.

0:51:59 Lydia: My God. Yeah. Yeah.

0:52:30 Clip: An investigator who herself was The president Of The Black Law Students Association at her Law school When

0:52:36 Thomas: Ah, at, at her law school. So not this one.

0:52:39 Lydia: Yeah.

0:52:40 Clip: She Was in law school two or three years before

0:52:42 Thomas: She, so not now. Went back when she was in law school. Look

0:52:47 Clip: Joining this investigation. I mean, it's not a conflict of interest directly, but It clearly is a reason For

0:52:52 Thomas: I'm building a wall between Mexico and thing, and he's like, it's that, it's literally that because, and he even does the Trumpy thing where he knows he can't, well, Trump, Trump barely did this, but like he does the thing where he knows he can't quite just come out and say she's black, that's why, like, but but he's doing this like, it's okay, it's not a conflict of interest, like, how, here's what I want, want to ask you, how much different is what he said then, she's black, so therefore she can't judge it, how much difference, where's the daylight, she was president of, not the same, yeah, hold on, not the same organization, that organ, that, whatever their version of it was at her different law school, so could she have been like treasurer, could she had been just a member, you don't think, think he would have said the same thing if she was just a member of it rather than a president of it. What do you think would have been the, okay? Would she have had to just abstain from being a member of this organization at her school?

I'd have to imagine membership is probably pretty high percentage wise, you know, of any black law student. Would imagine it's a pretty high percentage just because there aren't very many black law students, of course. And it's, that's the kind of circumstances in which you need to kind of get work together, that kind of thing. I would imagine membership is pretty high as a percentage of students who go there. So like, where is the daylight there? You're just saying she's black. That's all

0:52:59 Lydia: That's Crazy of The Black Law Students Association Yeah Yeah Yeah

0:54:17 Thomas: You're saying. It doesn't matter that she was a president of a totally different organization that just happened to also be about black people at a loss. It's absurd. And him saying, I love the dog whistling too, too.

0:54:30 Clip: People to say, hmm, do we really expect that person to be free, entirely of bias against Professor from Kilbourne, and sort of take a sort of straightforward approach to this investment

0:54:31 Thomas: Hmm. Take a straightforward approach to it. That's pretty dog whistly. Yeah. A black person can't take a straightforward reproach. They only take a biased approach to it because they're black. That is what he is saying in so many words. It is virtually identical to the Donald Trump Mexican judge scandal of 2016. That was before the election, actually, I remember now. Didn't remember that until I just looked up that video. Like it was that, that ago. I would have said it was in like 2017 or something, but yeah, it's exactly the same thing. There's almost no difference.

0:54:44 Lydia: I Mean that's, that's a great connection, and didn't even cross my mind, but like the second I heard his voice I was like, oh yeah, yeah

0:55:20 Thomas: It is hard to keep all of the fucking racism straight when it comes to Trump. So a little more, a little more evidence for the, this guy's a fucking asshole and probably a racist actually column. What do you think, unbelievable gotta play some of his hyperbole, because it just, it, it hyperbolizes and hyperbolises, it gets so good, like, you keep thinking that you're going to like, okay, he's all right, he's jumped the shark, and then there's five more sharks that he's like, it's amazing uh

0:55:23 Lydia: Oh Definitely Oh, no.

0:55:48 Clip: That's clearly not what happened here. So my due process right, the things that you would expect an ordinary fair investigation to look like, this investigation would be nothing whatsoever like that, and you simply cannot as a public institution treat people in that way and then harm them without giving them fair, so what the problem is, and if they're a possibility of opportunity to defend themselves, yeah

0:55:48 Lydia: Oh,

0:56:12 Thomas: You remember when I was reading the investigation report, you remember that time? Oh, it's a great Chris Parley sketch. Hey, you remember that time, hun, where I read you the investigation report, and he is quoted extensively at every single turn of it, because he was interviewed as a part of that and got to respond to each and every fucking thing, what, called due process, idiot? This guy's a lawyer, I don't, again, he's either a

0:56:34 Lydia: I've been thinking about this the whole time.

0:56:37 Thomas: Pathological liar or believes his own bullshit that much? Because that's due process. Due process doesn't mean, of first all, this is just me fucking reasoning on the back of the envelope. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty fucking certain of these things. The due process like requirements kindof scale with how serious the thing is. If the school was gonna execute him, yeah, you'd want some fucking due process, like he'd want letter of the law, all that shit.

If the school is fucking saying, um, yeah, we've determined you violated a policy and should you do about it, um, take a fucking class for five, like, sure, you're you are due some process, but like that's not going to be that strict a requirement for that low of a thing. It's just not, it's low stakes. It, not fired, that would maybe be a slightly higher, you know, burden I would think, again there's just me reasoning, but like it's usually how it works in the law.

And furthermore, he was interviewed and a given chance to respond at every turn. The only thing he could be talking about is that he wasn't given a change of mind, he wasn' t given a chance to know exactly who the students were, exactly when, he wanted on his fucking terms to know everything so he could respond in real time, like as they were talking at the same time, you know, but that's just fucking bullshit, that's just his narcissism. You don't get that, that's not due process, that would be like magical, you fucking, you're king for a day process. This is the due

0:58:03 Lydia: Yeah.

0:58:03 Thomas: Process, was he was interviewed, he got a chance to comment on every single fucking thing in the report, I'll

0:58:09 Clip: Your situation, one thing I've noticed is that it's similar to instances we've seen in the past with something like classic literature, where a professor or a teacher has gotten in trouble for for reading an expert over a slur in a book from from way back when in an academic context, but but they they still get in trouble. Your case is similar, except, except, as you point out, you didn't even use the slur, you used a letter followed by blank spaces. So what do you think it says about the current state of our higher education institutions where something seemingly so non-traversal can

0:58:44 Thomas: And what do you think it says let's see, are you prepared for an extremely level-headed take so

0:58:51 Lydia: Oh God.

0:58:54 Clip: Lead to this whole mess, a legal battle? Afraid it says quite a lot. And I'm worried what it says is extraordinarily scary, carried, we set back higher education 300 years before the Enlightenment, I mean this is exactly the kind of debate that used to happen in medieval universities, where someone would say something like, for example, the sun doesn't revolve around the Earth, and there would be this incredible inquiry into that, right how in the world can anyone say such a horrifically you know heretical thing and so I mean I would not before all this exploded have thought that putting n space on an exam and a question about employment discrimination would even be regarded as however extreme your your view of you know appropriate discourse might be I would not think that that crosses any lines, but one of the things that has really opened my eyes after all of this exploded in my face was that examples out there that are even now,

0:59:09 Lydia: God, what a baby. Oh my God. What an egomaniac.

0:59:30 Thomas: Full of himself all gonna skip ahead because that's we've already heard that this is where he goes into artisanal coffee and then the mixing up the names, but uh, don't worry, he gets back on track and have thought and it couldn't get worse than saying he's literally fucking Galileo or whatever. No, we're we've we're just getting started. Oh, In order to do this next part, hun, I'm going to play a little bit. It blended in, and I kind of, again, sculpted around it before. But this is where he's talking about the professor. By the way, once again, patreon.com/wherethereswoke, where you can get the bonus content, which was this mini debunk. I'm not going to reveal it here, but we will have to talk slightly about it to respond to this.

1:00:04 Lydia: Yeah, seriously. Oh my God.

1:00:30 Clip: Men who had been in that class inadvertently. This happens all the time with white people, with all kinds of other people. You just forget their names. These people aren't our lifelong friends, and of course they point this out. He tries to apologize, which, by the way, if there's any professors out there listening, understand one lesson of the kernels of engagement: apologies are like throwing lighter fluid on the fire. Never, never, never ever apologize, period, because the apology, as in this case, led to an increased firestorm. Oh, his apology wasn't clear enough, and it wasn't this enough, and it made us feel dehumanized and

1:01:08 Thomas: Patrons are laughing their fucking asses off who have heard that debunked. Again, I'm sorry. I can't give it away. It is, you know, it's on the Patreon. But it suffice to say that's not an accurate representation of what happened in that case. And here he is judging from that thing that he can barely remember that he completely just botches. It's nothing to do with it. Now he's extrapolating that apologies were the problem. Do you think apologies were the problem with his story? Where does he even get that for him? Him the part where you were intimidating fucking witnesses was the problem, dude. So

1:01:13 Lydia: Yeah. Our lips are sealed. Yeah, no. Yeah I'm

1:01:42 Clip: Once again, you just have to grab your head and go, "Am I hearing this right?" Because this poor student makes up a couple of names, goes, "Hey, sorry," right? And one last comment on this, where is this bringing us in higher education? I mean, I would have thought, as I was quoted as saying very early on in this whole ordeal, I would have thought

1:02:00 Thomas: Honey, you braced for a really level-headed take. What

1:02:04 Lydia: Scared.

1:02:05 Clip: That we would all agree as members of civilized society that if you're walking along the street and you inadvertently bump into somebody and you quit turning over, "Hey, sorry about that." We would all agree that the appropriate reaction of the person who has been bumped into is not to pounce on you and kick you in the head until you are bleeding. Apparently I was wrong. There is a very large segment of people in our society, many, many of whom are among the students and particularly among the faculty and administration at higher education institutions today, who believe all the old rules are all bad. Those old rules too significantly constrain us. They were written by people who we hate. They stand for terrible things that we oppose. And therefore, all bets are off. We write the rules now. And if you inadvertently bump into us, and God forbid if you say you're sorry, we will bleed the living hell out of you. And

1:02:05 Lydia: Oh my god. Oh

1:02:57 Clip: It's an open question of whether we'll let you even live or not.

1:03:00 Lydia: My god! What?

1:03:01 Clip: I mean, thank goodness I have tenure. I never in gazillion years would have thought that tenure was going to be required to save my job for this utterly ridiculous thing that has just happened to me. This is not what tenure is supposed to stand for. Well,

1:03:18 Thomas: Do you think it can't get any worse and we might let you live, he's literally, by the way, he's like, "We live in a society," he's literal doing that take. I would have thought that we live in a fucking society. Oh, my god, just it's downright insane, like, it's this is, yeah, certifiable.

1:03:28 Lydia: Yeah, that's crazy. Concerned about him at this point. Yeah, yeah,

1:03:36 Thomas: I, I mean, this is, he, was asked to go to, he went, he man. And so now we've got to transition. This, this will transition perfectly. I've, I've actually drawn it up well for one son. Cause he's gonna, he's going to kind of give us some predictions and that this is now a year and a half ago that this happened, happened. Um, I, I will be able to call out some of these predictions, not all. It's not a law stuff, uh, you may know, takes a very long time, but uh, there's some of it that we can, I can, I can reveal to you, so here we go. The

1:03:40 Lydia: In the head bleeding, yeah, okay, okay, he's

1:04:17 Clip: I want to ask you if there's any update date on this lawsuit, maybe there's an inside scoop that you can share with our audience about where you're currently at in this process. I wish that I had the inside scoop. The university council received this thing and said, "Oh, hey, wow, we now see you're serious and let's actually have a conversation." No, we've heard absolute radio silence from them. I don't expect that we're going to hear anything from them, as we've seen so many other university cases like this. University council believes his job, in her job, in every of these cases is not to act reasonably. We try to seek compromise. It is to circle leggings, ditch trenches, don't admit anything, don't recognize that we've got some problems here. I could have partnered with the university to overcome this public relations firestorm, to have this be a teaching moment for us all

1:04:33 Lydia: It's his fault

1:05:05 Clip: To come back together with university

1:05:05 Thomas: Hey, uh, where did that public relations firestorm come from? He's

1:05:09 Lydia: Him God, he created it.

1:05:14 Clip: To overcome the public relations firestorm, to have this be a teaching moment for us all, to come back together with healing and understanding, and everyone would have benefited. That's not only not the choice that UIC made, UIC counsel is very clearly directing us toward a totally unnecessary, knock-down, drag-out war. And I'll tell you, I'm ready for it. Fire's ready for us. I have almost nothing to lose. You've already destroyed my reputation entirely. I had tenure. There's no reason for you whatsoever to try to fire me.

And it's about time somebody is held accountable for this business. The far left loves to talk about accountability, accountability. Well, let's have some accountability on your side now. We haven't heard anything about this, and I strongly don't suspect we will, until they throw some ridiculous nonsense back at us by way of defense. Do you think that this lawsuit will make its way through the courts and get hashed out, or do you think the university will end up settling?

I don't think that the university could give me a settlement offer that I would accept. I'm not interested in settling. I don't want anything from the university. I want them to be told, in no uncertain terms, there's this thing called the First Amendment, you

1:06:21 Clip: Might not be familiar with it, you obviously are

1:06:23 Thomas: Talking to a law school by the way

1:06:24 Lydia: He is the most pompous person, yeah

1:06:25 Clip: Not familiar with it, right? We just became UIC's law school, so they're kind of getting used to having some lawyers on campus. Well, I've got news for you, UIC, this lawyer is not going to be pushed around. Part of our job as public servants is to teach our students, and now apparently teach the university, that the law actually matters. You can't just ignore all the rules. So no, we're not settling unless they agree to the very simple things that I told them to do, which they're not going to.

They want to be able to write the rules on the fly as they see fit. It's not going happen. I don't think this is going to go to a trial. Trials are about journeys resolving factual disputes. There's no factual dispute really here. The question is, can the university run roughshod over the First and Fifth Amendments? The answer, I think, and hope, is no. And before long, I don't think we're going to be able to get a chance to ask a court to tell you, I see, by way of what we call summary judgment, I think that's a lesson a lot of people would be wise to learn, is that there is no compromising on your rights, and there is not compromising on the truth, so props to you for that.

1:07:20 Thomas: Oh,

1:07:32 Clip: And Professor

1:07:31 Thomas: Pretty uh, pretty, pretty cocky there, you see why I slow rolled a lot of that video, because you just can't even, it's like, and you know, to be fair, it could be hypothetically true that he could have been more reasonable and correct back when this happened, but he's just been so radicalized by his fucking echo chamber, so, like, in fairness, I mean, it doesn't prove that he was always wrong, but it lends some evidence if you can go that fucking badly into your own shit where you're

1:07:34 Lydia: Probably one of the the most pompous people I've ever heard speak ever, yeah yeah and that

1:08:07 Thomas: Calling yourself Galileo. Yeah. And, and you're, it's just, it's just nonsense. So, um, are some pretty confident words. Don't you think that he's going to teach this fucking school? Well, it is the law school. That was kind of confusing, 'cause it's like, it is a law school, but he's suing UIC, but also the law schools. So I mean, if he's suing the law school, it's not like they don't know the law. It's a weird thing that he tries the poll, you know, because he's suing people, the dean of the law school as well. Anyway, but the he's going to teach them the law, and they don't know something called the First Amendment. So I think now is where we're going to transition to some of the legal stuff, and some of the, holy shit, fire .org is the biggest piece of shit, I can't even believe it.

1:08:07 Lydia: Quickly yeah yeah