The trial is underway for a professor who sued the University of California, Los Angeles, over his suspension after he refused to grade black students more leniently in the wake of George Floyd&#8217;s highly publicized death.
Gordon Klein, an accounting <a href="https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/accounting/faculty/klein">professor</a> at UCLA, is demanding $22 million in damages in a trial that began last week in Santa Monica.
Back in June 2020, just weeks after George Floyd&#8217;s death, Klein received an email from a group of his students asking for a &#8220;no-harm&#8221; final exam that could only help their grades and would involve shorter tests and extended deadlines for final assignments and projects.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨🚨NEW: Will UCLA have to fork over $22 million to Gordon Klein, the business professor it suspended after he refused a request to grade black students leniently? 
We will soon find out &#8212; the trial is scheduled to start July 1 in a Santa Monica courthouse! 
I just read… <a href="https://t.co/cwSdaKtVMT">pic.twitter.com/cwSdaKtVMT</a>
&mdash; Jennifer Kabbany (@JenniferKabbany) <a href="https://twitter.com/JenniferKabbany/status/1939056470815056343?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
The students asked for special accommodations due to “traumas, we have been placed in a position where we much (sic) choose between actively supporting our black classmates or focusing on finishing up our spring quarter,” as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ucla-students-want-two-professors-fired-because-they-didnt-accommodate-student-feelings">reported</a> at the time.
“We believe that remaining neutral in times of injustice brings power to the oppressor and therefore staying silent is not an option,” the students told Klein.
The students claimed their request was not “a joint effort to get finals canceled for non-black students,” but rather to “ask that you exercise compassion and leniency with black students in our major.”
Klein responded with several sarcastic emails that got him in trouble with the school.
“Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota,” Klein wrote to the students.
“Do you know the names of the classmates that are black?” the professor asked. “How can I identify them since we’ve been having online classes only?”
Klein also asked about students who “may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian?”
“What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half?” he quipped.
Klein also wrote that “a white student from [Minneapolis] might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they’re racist even if they are not.”
The professor ended his email response to the complaining students with Martin Luther King Jr.&#8217;s famous quote about not judging people based on the color of their skin.
Students screenshotted Klein&#8217;s email and posted it to social media, where it sparked angry responses.
Klein was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/professor-sues-ucla-after-he-was-suspended-for-refusing-to-grade-black-students-differently-than-white-students">suspended</a> and criticized by UCLA in June 2020 before being reinstated in September 2020, <a href="https://dailybruin.com/2025/06/30/trial-to-begin-in-lawsuit-filed-by-ucla-lecturer-against-administrators">according</a> to the Daily Bruin.
“Conduct that demonstrates a disregard for our core principles, including an abuse of power, is not acceptable,” <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/trial-set-to-begin-over-ucla-prof-suspended-after-refusing-lenient-grading-for-black-students/">wrote</a> Anderson School Dean Antonio Bernardo in a message to the campus community. &#8220;I deeply regret the increased pain and anger that our community has experienced at this very difficult time. We must and will hold each other to higher standards.”
UCLA reinstated Klein after just a few weeks, but his reputation and career had already suffered, according to the professor&#8217;s lawsuit.
Klein accuses UCLA of harming his expert witness practice, where he previously made about $1 million a year in high-profile cases, including Michael Jackson’s wrongful death suit.
“By this moment, as a direct and immediate result of [his] public suspension and excoriation, Professor Klein’s expert witness practice had been permanently destroyed,” the lawsuit <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/trial-set-to-begin-over-ucla-prof-suspended-after-refusing-lenient-grading-for-black-students/">states</a>.
Meanwhile, UCLA will argue that Klein was suspended for his &#8220;tone and manner.&#8221;
The <a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/07/trial-starts-in-suit-against-ucla-by-prof-gordon-klein-targeted-and-smeared-for-refusing-exam-leniency-for-black-students/">trial</a> is expected to last through the end of next week.

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Trial Underway For UCLA Professor Who Refused To ‘Exercise Compassion’ With Race-Based Grading