HUNT VS. DOLEZAL (UPDATED)
POWERLINE JUNE 15, 2015 BY STEVEN HAYWARD
In my “Who Turned the Crazy Machine Up to 11” post last Friday, I noted the breaking stories of Rachel Dolezal, the race-hustling Social Justice Warrior of Spokane, and Tim Hunt, the University of London Nobel Prize winning biologist, who told a bad joke of why he doesn’t like women in scientific labs. Hunt has lost his job over making his bad joke, as though he was a member of Gerald Ford’s cabinet or something.
Today Dolezal resigned her post as head of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, but will she lose her job as an Africana Studies professor at Eastern Washington University? More to the point, is it a criminal offense to falsify your race on employment or college admission applications? I’d need to consult a good employment lawyer on the question. (Fortunately, Power Line has one of those.) Regardless of the legal jeopardy, it will be an interesting and instructive contrast on the state of things today if Dolezal keeps her university job while Hunt lost his.
UPDATE: Since I posted this (from an airplane) 90 minutes ago, news has broken that Dolezal is no longer employed as a professor at Eastern Washington, where—surprise, surprise—she wasn’t actually a real professor at all, but an adjunct. (I’m sure the grades she gave out in her courses were real grades, though.) Meanwhile, a petition has been started calling for the University of London to reinstate Hunt. I suggest we all sign it. It would be a small sign of sanity if he could regain his job, and Dolezal has to find a real one for a change.
In addition to Dolezal’s falsehoods that appear to include several fake hate crimes, it turns out she sued Howard University for discrimination . . . for being white. The Smoking Gun has the details, including a copy of the legal complaint:
The court opinion also noted that Dolezal claimed that the university’s decision to remove some of her artworks from a February 2001 student exhibition was “motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students over” her.
As detailed in the court opinion, Dolezal’s lawsuit contended that Howard was “permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult.”
Judge Zoe Bush dismissed Dolezal’s complaint in February 2004, 18 months after the lawsuit was filed and Dolezal was deposed on several occasions. Bush found no evidence that Dolezal was discriminated on the basis of race or other factors. The D.C. Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed Bush’s decision.
Following the dismissal of Dolezal’s lawsuit (and the Court of Appeals decision), she was ordered to reimburse Howard for a “Bill of Costs” totaling $2728.50. During the case, she was also ordered to pay the university nearly $1000 in connection with an “obstructive and vexatious” court filing that sought to improperly delay her examination by an independent doctor.
No wonder she decided to be black.
Finally, the Meme Generators have been turned up to 11 on this story, and I wouldn’t want Power Line readers to be left out of the fun: