As the new Trump administration takes decisive measures to enforce civil rights laws and antidiscrimination policies on America’s campuses, the courts continue to play a vital, if sometimes slow, role in the process.

Last Tuesday, UCLA Anderson School of Management accounting lecturer Gordon Klein finally got his day in court, more than five years after he was suspended for an E-mail reply to a student’s request that he grade Black students more leniently because of the George Floyd incident.

Klein’s reply raised the logical questions of how he could tell which students in the class — conducted online because of the COVID-19 pandemic — were Black, how he should grade students who are half-Black, whether white students from Minneapolis were also entitled to lenient grading, and whether the student who contacted him agreed with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that people should not be judged by the color of their skin.

Screenshots of Klein’s response were widely shared and angrily denounced as purported evidence of structural racism.

Two days later, Anderson School Dean Antonio Bernardo informed the campus community of "troubling conduct by one of our lecturers," meaning Klein, who was not named, and announced his suspension pending investigation for an alleged "disregard for our core principles, including an abuse of power."

"I deeply regret the increased pain and anger that our community has experienced at this very difficult time," the dean added, moralizing that "we must and will hold each other to higher standards."

Klein, who has taught at UCLA for 44 years with what he claims has been an otherwise "unblemished" record, was restored to full duties less than a month later with no finding of wrongdoing and continues to teach there today.

But the damage was done. As he alleges in his lawsuit, the mere fact of his temporary suspension — even though it did not result in disciplinary sanctions — effectively destroyed his lucrative career as an expert witness in litigation involving complex business interactions, a practice in which he claims in court documents to have earned over $1 million per year — far more than his UCLA compensation.

Klein’s attorneys have claimed in a public statement that expert witnesses must disclose to clients whether they have been subject to any form of workplace disciplinary action.

Opposing counsel who seek to discredit expert witnesses' testimony routinely ask them under oath if they have ever been professionally disciplined.

Affirming a history of workplace discipline — even in one incident — can seriously undermine expert testimony, if not discredit it altogether.

Klein’s lawyers argue on that basis that his UCLA suspension left him "essentially unmarketable and unusable" in that line of work. He is seeking $22 million in damages.

UCLA has challenged Klein’s right to sue due to matters arising from an earlier arbitration proceeding, in which Klein counterclaims that UCLA failed to meet its obligations.

UCLA has also claimed that Klein was suspended for his supposedly unprofessional "tone and manner" rather than his e-mail reply’s content or implied political views.

Multiple authorities, including the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), however, have long held that subjective reactions to interpersonal communications are insufficient grounds for disciplinary action.

But if Klein’s case has reached trial, he has at least some chance of redress through our legal system, and UCLA could lose big.

Klein joins a growing roster.

In 2022, Shawnee State University philosophy professor Nicholas Merriwether won a federal lawsuit against his institution after he was subjected to campus discipline for refusing to use a transgendered student's pronouns of choice.

A circuit court found that the university had violated his First Amendment rights and awarded him $400,000.

In 2024, Beverly Buck Brennan, a white professor of speech and theatre at Missouri’s historically Black Harris-Stowe State University, won $750,000 in a lawsuit claiming that she was treated unequally on the bases of race and sex.

Seven years earlier, the same institution paid $5 million to settle a suit brought by Beverly Wilkins, a white education instructor who claimed to have been passed over for promotions and eventually fired because of her race.

In April of this year, former University of Louisville psychiatry professor Allan Josephson received a $1.6 million payment to settle claims that he was demoted and later severed from employment for having publicly questioned radical gender ideology and "transition" treatment for minors, positions he successfully argued were protected by the First Amendment.

Since 2011, more than 850 federal lawsuits have been brought against colleges and universities alleging abuses of Title IX, the Education Department regulation expanded by the Obama administration to investigate gender-based discriminatory harassment.

Most of those cases have been successful and, along with other civil rights cases, have cost institutions millions of dollars to defend while inflicting serious reputational harm and, in many cases, corrective action.

On the same day Klein’s trial began, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax began an official period of disciplinary leave during which she has been placed on reduced pay, deprived of her endowed chair, and compelled to dissociate public remarks from her employer, among other sanctions.

Wax’s supposed sin consists of alleged statements that some students claim to have found offensive and frank observations that Black students at her institution have not generally performed as well as other students.

In what is likely to be the most prominent university-related First Amendment lawsuit in decades, Wax is suing Penn in federal court for free speech violations as well as for breach of contract and discrimination.

In light of earlier cases, its entirely possible that she will prevail.

Conservatives who claim to care about recapturing our institutions of higher education should take careful note and support such litigation efforts.

Paul du Quenoy is President of the Palm Beach Freedom Institution. Read Paul du Quenoy's Reports — More Here.