UCLA students say ‘free speech is under attack’ and a conservative … – LA Daily News

Students and supporters of a UCLA adjunct professor are protesting what they say is pressure the university is putting on him because of his outspoken conservative politics.

Keith Fink, a lawyer, has taught classes on free speech, contemporary issues, entertainment law and other subjects at UCLA for 10 years. He and student supporters said he may be dismissed from the school because administrators disagree with his views and practices, such as holding seminars on students rights and interviews he gave on Foxs Tucker Carlson Tonight about his charge that UCLA is blocking students from taking his popular free speech course.

The administration doesnt like what I have to say, Fink said by phone Friday. I also support students basic rights to due process and the school doesnt like that. ... I show the students how their rights are violated. ... I dont believe in trigger warnings. I dont walk on eggshells. I dont believe in safe spaces. I run against that current.

Fink, an adjunct professor at the university, said a recent shift in the leadership of the Communication Studies department, where he teaches, has led to pressure on him. He is undergoing a review process that he said could result in his dismissal and which UCLA said is routine for lecturers who have completed 18 quarters of teaching at the school. Fink said he didnt accept a salary in his first years of teaching at UCLA, which is why, administrators told him, the review is taking place now rather than several years ago.

About 25 students and supporters, carrying signs saying Free speech is under attack and Keep your agenda out of our classroom, gathered Friday on campus before bringing a list of demands to Laura Gmez, interim dean of UCLA College Division of Social Sciences which oversees the Communication Studies department, who wasnt in her office when they delivered their list. Among the demands: that Fink be allowed to keep teaching and that the school implement curriculums that increase intellectual tolerance on campus.

Mick Mathis, a senior at UCLA, said pressure on Fink is about curtailing free speech.

This is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, and its not a marketplace of ideas if theyre trying to get rid of somebody with a contradictory viewpoint, Mathis said.

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Requests for comment sent to Gmez and to Kerri Johnson, dean of the Communication Studies department, werent returned by deadline Friday.

But university officials issued a statement in response to questions about whether Finks employment at UCLA is under consideration:

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The content of his courses has never been curtailed, and as a lecturer, Mr. Fink is protected by a collective bargaining agreement between UCLA and the American Federation of Teachers, the union to which he belongs as a lecturer. UCLAs process for reviewing instructors is comprehensive and fair, as well as respectful of the privacy normally accorded to personnel procedures. His current review is in-progress, and he has been afforded the full due process considerations mandated by the collective bargaining agreement and that every lecturer undergoing this review receives, said the statement sent by UCLA spokeswoman Rebecca Kendall.

Cynthia Truhan, a UCLA alumna and volunteer at the school, said she came to the protest Friday out of concern that the situation reflects a chilling of free speech at a public school.

As an alumni, I am highly disturbed, because now in our own backyard is a firm example of what is happening across the nation, which I feel is a silencing of free speech of any divergent opinion that varies from the base of that particular university, Truhan said.

Fink and students said that a popular class he teaches, Race, Sex & Politics: Free Speech on Campus, has consistently had more students who want to attend than spots available, yet the school has effectively reduced the class size to around 200 through a cap on enrollment and by moving it to a smaller classroom. Fink said he was allowed nearly 300 seats for past sessions of the class.

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Fink, an alumnus of UCLA, said he is outspoken in his political viewpoints. Asked if he has ever used a racial slur in his class, as a student alleged in one news report, Fink said he has only in the context of discussing free speech.

N-----, c--- ... Of course! I teach harassment. You have to use those words in discussions with students about what constitutes a hostile environment, he said. Its all contextual. That infuriates me, the insinuation that Im using racial epithets, out of context.

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