Bret Weinstein, the liberal college professor who refused to go along with radical student demands at Evergreen State College for a “Day of Absence” — a day without white people on campus — has filed his intention to sue the college. The amount demanded, $3.85 million, is for damages he suffered, and continues to suffer, as explained by Weinstein’s attorney:
[Evergreen] failed to set and enforce necessary boundaries in the workplace on campus, selectively has chosen not to enforce its student Code of Conduct, and sent the unmistakable message that the school will tolerate (and even endorse) egregious violations (and even crimes) purportedly to advance racial social goals, diminishing the collegiate experience for all, and fostering a racially hostile work and retaliatory environment for faculty and staff.
Weinstein, who actually had to move his classes off-campus because campus police said they couldn’t protect him from harm, not only was harassed by students, with the school’s tacit consent, he got pushback from fellow faculty for letting the world know what was happening. He has appeared several times on Tucker Carlson Tonight, starting in late May, as the student takeover of campus from spineless administration officials gathered momentum and publicity. When a video of students loudly and obscenely calling for Weinstein’s firing for his refusal to leave the campus on the “Day of Absence” suddenly surfaced, Weinstein’s fellow faculty members added their negative input.
One e-mail said: “Bret, I don’t know what you were thinking. By describing yourself to Tucker [Carlson] as a ‘deeply progressive person’, you provided him ammunition for the claim that ‘the crazies are even going after progressives!!! I hope that you won’t deepen your relationship with Fox or pass on more raw material [the video?] for Tucker’s ‘campus craziness’ show.”
The details over Weinstein’s intention to sue came to light through hundreds of pages of documents provided to Campus Reform, part of the Leadership Institute and run by college students. Campus Reform summarized some of what it received about Weinstein’s claims and intention to sue:
[Evergreen State College] has permitted, cultivated, and perpetuated a racially hostile and retaliatory work environment [and that] through a series of decisions made at the highest levels, including to officially support a day of racial segregation, the College has refused to protect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence.
FreedomProject.com writer Alex Newman summarized the situation at Evergreen nicely:
The lunatics have truly taken over the asylum at Evergreen State College. The supposed “leaders” of the college, fumbling with which politically correct pronoun to use, quickly raised the white flag in response to the ludicrous “demands” of the pampered nuts posing as victimized students.
And the only seemingly responsible adult at the college who tried to prevent the takeover of the asylum is now being viciously attacked by the bloodthirsty mob demanding his head.
Filing a “tort claim” — essentially an announcement of intent to sue — both Bret Weinstein and his wife (also an Evergreen professor) now are waiting for the mandatory 60-day waiting period to expire so the lawsuit can be filed.
It’s not likely this lawsuit will ever see the inside of a courtroom. It’s much more likely that negotiations are going on at the moment between Weinstein’s attorney and school officials to make this whole incident disappear. Whatever settlement the Weinsteins receive, it will unfortunately punish the taxpayers and not the “students” or the faculty who allowed them to foist their radical agenda onto every student on campus. The school is funded with taxpayer dollars, and it will be the taxpayers who will be punished for the infantile outrage inflicted upon the professor and his wife.
And the price tag will be vastly greater if the school accedes to all the demands those so-called students placed before the administration. According to Newman, they called for “mandatory sensitivity and cultural competency training for faculty, staff, administrators, and student employees.” They also “demand” “the creation of an equity center,” the hiring of a full-time “coordinator of the Trans & Queer Center,” the disarming of police, the “creation of a position that will support undocumented students,” the suspension of Professor Weinstein, and much more.
Photo of Evergreen College: Screenshot of an ad for Evergreen College
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].