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Professor sues CUNY, claims he was fired for criticizing black student’s homework

Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) political science adjunct John Trujillo is suing the City University of New York (CUNY) for $3 million in a reverse discrimination lawsuit.

After getting into a verbal scuffle with a black female student, Trujillo eventually had a campus security officer escort the student from his class. This prompted another student to protest and then leave as well, stating “I’m going to write a letter, I’m going to take you down.”

Up until this point, Trujillo’s teaching evaluations had been so exemplary, “administrators had stopped conducting them,” he says. But following the incident, his class was visited again by college officials — and he received a rating of “unsatisfactory.”

The New York Post reports:

The trouble began in October 2014 when the adjunct professor disciplined a black student who failed to follow homework directions, he says in a $3 million legal filing.

He’d asked students to turn in their work on a 4×6 index card, but the student used a 3×5 card instead, prompting an exchange in which she called Trujillo a “d–k” in front of the class, the teacher claims.

After a second run-in with the disrespectful student, Trujillo, 51, had security escort the girl out.

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The [second] student, who was also black, charged Trujillo was a racist who told his class that all black people were on welfare and that he should be teaching at an Ivy League school.

“She twisted things I said,” Trujillo claims, saying he’s challenged students who voice racial stereotypes.

As the professor spent weeks challenging the negative rating, a chorus of other student complaints emerged. BMCC escorted Trujillo from his classroom and fired him in February 2015 from his $21,000-a-year post.

One black student in Trujillo’s class wanted to defend the teacher against fellow classmates who were “making up lies.” But administrators never talked to this student, according to Trujillo’s lawyer, Marshall Bellovin.

He “didn’t get a fair and impartial investigation and accounting of the facts,” Bellovin said. “It was open and shut apparently from the start.”

The Daily Caller’s Evan Gahr notes that Trujillo’s legal claim faces an uphill battle:

“Even though Trujillo was obviously railroaded he needs to offer specific evidence that similarly situated non-whites were treated differently and more leniently,” he writes.

“In addition, he needs to prove that CUNY fired him solely for being white, as opposed to just the typical unwillingness of college administrators to offend loud and whiny students, especially when they make wild accusations of bigotry.”

Read the full NY Post article and Daily Caller piece.

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