“Our Standards? Can He Drive The Baseline? Hit A Three-Pointer?”

     I sometimes lament how little of the news I manage to cover each day. There’s certainly plenty going on. But I have an actual life – the C.S.O. reminds me about that frequently – a home, animals to tend, and miscellaneous other things that deserve some attention. So I miss a lot.

     However, courtesy of 90 Miles From Tyranny, I didn’t miss this story:

     UCLA accounting lecturer Gordon Klein is demanding well over $19 million in damages in a lawsuit scheduled to go to trial March 4 in a Santa Monica courthouse.
     The two sides have engaged in legal wrangling since September 2021, when Klein first filed suit — including a failed attempt by UCLA’s lawyers to get the case tossed by summary judgment.
     The causes of action to be hashed out next month are breach of contract, retaliation, false light, and negligent interference with prospective earnings.

     But why was Klein suspended?

     The crux of the controversy took place following [convicted felon George] Floyd’s death, when Klein received a request asking that he provide academic leniency for his black students enduring emotional duress….
     Klein responded June 2, 2020, by asking how he was supposed to identify black students in the online class; whether he should also go easy on white students from Minneapolis; how much leeway to show half-black students; and how the student feels about Martin Luther King Jr.’s admonition to not evaluate people based on “the color of their skin.”…
     In response, Anderson School Dean Antonio Bernardo wrote in a June 4, 2020, memo to the campus community that Klein was suspended and an investigation was underway.

     Klein’s response to this request for preferential treatment by race tossed the whole enterprise into a flaming dumpster. It was an effortless lay-up. But UCLA’s “refs” called foul and ejected him from the arena.

     UCLA, of course, is famous as a “basketball college.” Its basketball teams routinely make the national standings and have often triumphed at the annual NCAA tournament. There have been several controversies about the university’s preferential treatment of its hoops stars. The subject even inspired a movie that was moderately popular at the time.

     As high-level basketball is dominated by blacks, “lenient grading” of black students would be consistent with UCLA’s emphasis on that program. Less to worry about in the classroom means more time and energy available for the hardwood court. Faculty and staff who object to such preferential academic treatment get the response Gordon Klein got, or something much like it.

     Now, you may think “But what of it? These kids aren’t going to be doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, or public officials. Their future is on the court, so let them play. If that takes some surreptitious bending of the standards in their favor, we can let it pass for the sake of a good jump shot.”

     Enter the forces of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” powerfully backed up by equal-opportunity commissions at the local, state, and federal levels. Those dribblers and jumpers will become “doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, or public officials,” the latter mainly in Democrat administrations. And they will bring with them the attitude that grows from lenient treatment in college: i.e., that “the standards don’t apply to us.”

     You think not? Have a gander at this:

     Some “experts” are saying that professionalism at work — which they pejoratively call “code-switching” — takes a toll on black Americans and should not be expected of them. They should be able to “be themselves” in the workplace, is the idea.

     What is meant here by “professionalism at work?” Oh, nothing of great importance. Mainly punctuality, clarity in communication, behavior consistent with a calm and orderly workplace, and adequate performance at one’s job. But the standards of the workplace can be loosened so those poor, oppressed blacks can “be themselves,” can’t they?

     Some don’t just ask. Some demand – and they do so with the cudgel of “racial inequality” in hand:

     Code-switching is a form of self-protection for Black Americans, who regularly face anti-Black bias on the job, said Darin Johnson, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and a member of the Communication Neuroscience Lab.
     “At work, Black folks have dealt with a lot of racism and a lot of bias,” said Johnson, who studies code-switching.
     Deep racial inequalities persist at every level in the business world, creating sharply disparate outcomes for Black Americans. But Black women face multiple layers of bias that prevent them from truly being themselves at the office, said Y-Vonne Hutchinson, CEO and founder of the DEI consulting firm ReadySet and author of “How to Talk to Your Boss About Race.”

     Oh no! “Disparate outcomes!” Sound the general alarm! All hands to their battle stations! But what’s the battle about? Conformance to workplace standards…which inevitably includes the performance of black workers and the effect their nonconformance has on the non-black portion of the workforce.

     When these things are measured and publicized, things get ugly. For black nonconformance to workplace standards isn’t entirely a matter of preference. It’s partly a matter of ability. In recent years, that aspect of the thing has become ever more visible.

     Thomas Sowell has said that to hold blacks to lower standards does them no favors. But who pays attention to him? Mostly those heartless conservatives, and they’re all white, aren’t they?

     There is also this: preferential treatment of any sort inevitably engenders resentment and anger among those who aren’t members of the favored category. When it’s race-based, it stimulates and nourishes interracial animosity. The consequences are building toward large-scale violence. No one will like where that will lead.

     As the point has been made, I think I’ll stop here. Have a nice day.