This post was updated June 29 at 6:10 p.m.
The department of communication studies ended the appointment of a lecturer following a review process that began in May.
Laura E. Gómez, interim dean of social sciences, issued a notice of termination to Keith Fink, a former continuing lecturer, on June 27. UCLA spokesperson Tod Tamberg said in an email statement that the standard review part-time lecturers undergo determined Fink’s teaching did not meet academic standards. Fink’s termination is effective June 30.
The excellence review process takes place during a lecturer’s 16th to 18th quarter of teaching and determines whether the lecturer keeps his or her appointment. As part of the excellence review, a committee of nine tenured faculty members in the communication studies department voted on whether or not Fink met academic standards. The committee that reviewed Fink tied its vote, so Gómez made the final decision on his appointment.
UCLA uses five criteria to evaluate excellence for lecturers, including student evaluations and other academic qualifications.
Tamberg said the academic review process is a matter of university personnel and could not be discussed publicly.
A group of UCLA students and alumni called Keep Fink at UCLA claims the university treated Fink unfairly during the review process because he is politically conservative. Last month, the group organized a protest to support Fink and demanded the university retain him.
Fink has publicly criticized the communication studies department and said he thinks they mistreated him during the review process. Earlier this year, Fink claimed the department restricted him from distributing permission-to-enroll numbers to students.
Associate professor and communication studies department chair Kerri Johnson said in a statement that PTE petitions for Fink’s class were allocated consistently and were not actually denied.
Fink also said he sent the communication studies department a list of faculty he believed to be biased against him. The union contract on continuing appointments states that a lecturer under review can raise concerns about bias on individuals involved in his or her review, and the academic review file will include those concerns.
The department appointed two faculty members on his list to review his performance, he said.
He added he thinks Gómez should not have made the final decision on his appointment because he has criticized her on multiple occasions, which Fink said he thinks made her biased against him.
“(The communication studies department) let Gómez make the (tie-breaking) decision instead of someone unbiased,” Fink said. “At the department hearing, professors Johnson and (Greg) Bryant, two of the three people I listed as biased, refused to recuse themselves.”
Andrew Litt, Fink’s former teaching assistant, said he thinks the communication studies department terminated Fink’s appointment because they disagree with his political views.
“(Fink is) not afraid to say things that sometimes people perceive as politically incorrect (or) speak out about something the school did. Some administrators really dislike that,” Litt said. “They want to push him off (his position). His excellence review just happened to be the right way to do that.”
Fink said he thinks his criticism of UCLA administrators affected his excellence review. He said he has criticized Gómez for funding classes he thinks are biased against President Donald Trump, and called the Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion unnecessary.
“This should send shock waves to every teacher,” Fink said. “If they cross Johnson or Gómez, if they speak badly of Chancellor (Gene) Block or (Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Jerry) Kang, they have the risk of not having their contracts reviewed for no reason – that’s frightening.”
Johnson said in an email that she cannot comment on academic personnel cases.
Fink said he thinks the department prevented him from teaching during summer by not sending him the paperwork required by his union contract regarding summer sessions. He added that he did not choose to cancel his classes.
Johnson said in an email that Fink’s former teaching assistant asked the department to remove Fink as the instructor of record on the summer courses he was scheduled to teach.
“The department made numerous attempts to contact Mr. Fink directly regarding this withdrawal, but received no response,” she said.
Fink said he plans to establish a nonprofit foundation to offer legal services for UCLA students.
“I am never going to give up on UCLA students,” Fink said. “I want to be a resource for students who face free speech and due process issues.”
Yara Hejazi, a UCLA alumnus, said he thinks Fink is a well-regarded professor among students and found it suspicious that the department announced Fink’s termination during summer.
“If (Fink is) not excellent then I don’t know what is, I can’t make any sense of (the termination),” said Hejazi. “I’m just speculating here, but the timing of this decision is suspect.”
Hejazi added he thinks that terminating Fink’s appointment is unfair to students who wish to take his class in the future.
“The worst thing that is going to result from this is students won’t be able to take his classes in the future – and his classes are invaluable,” Hejazi said.
This is a big mistake by the university. It now seems like dissenters will not be tolerated in favor of spineless yes-men who conform to the university’s agenda.
Or maybe they wanted to cancel his appointment for actual teaching reasons, and it was a tough call since they knew there would be backlash now if they did, but they stuck to their guns in the interests of making sure the students had the best teachers they can provide?
Except students rated him as one of the best teacher they could provide. Stop drinking the Kool Aid.
The students liked the class enough, but liberals don’t like good teachers.
“liberals don’t like good teachers”
Lol, do you hear yourself?
No one can hear him, this is typed communication. Anyway, I read him fine. Maybe you should reread your comment, a whole rambling and defensive screed full of baseless conjecture and justifying the political bias by certain UCLA staff. Yeah, do you “hear” yourself?
Professor Fink was one of the best rated teachers at the school. This whole controversy arose because the school wouldn’t allow him to issue PTE codes for students to enroll above the enrollment cap. I don’t think there is any issue with his teaching.
You are unfamiliar with the facts and are in need of an internet search.
Yes-women*
You must be politically correct.
As the media continues to self destruct, academia may be next . . .
The Daily Bruin is a failing pile of garbage.
The problem here is with the suppression of viewpoints that are different from the very narrow administration approved bandwidth of “acceptable.” Fink was axed because they could get away with it and he has no real recourse. Laura Gómez, you did a disservice to our students and should be ashamed, but you won’t be.
Laura Gómez and Kerri Johnson are incredibly intolerant.
This really, really, really, really, really, really looks to an outsider like a conservative who had Wrong Ideas about free speech got fired due to overzealous ideologues disagreeing with him – of which we’ve seen many on campus.
Laura Gomez and Kerri Johnson do not deserve the benefit of the doubt here, and this firing looks very politically motivated. The tone of the coverage here really backs up the idea that this was about Wrongthink.
This is better coverage of the issue: http://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Did-a-UCLA-Instructor-With/240521
I don’t know Fink, but I am familiar with what a Lecturer is, vs. a Professor and I believe that is a huge part in this. I think there are two separate issues: disagreement about his political beliefs, and his criticism of the University especially with respect to his level.
Students are rightly outraged about stifling opposing views. So for that, I understand and agree.
Second is clashing with the campus culture. This is a very common reason to terminate someone in industry if they cannot fulfill the mission or cultural ideals of the company. If Prof Fink was creating a stir with Deans and the Chancellor over such initiatives such as Diversity and Inclusion (a major campus initiative), it makes sense he would be terminated because it means he cannot serve in the interest of the University and what it believes is important. The faculty probably felt that he would fit in better at some other school. One big thing that this story is missing is exactly how he treated these matters. This is where his level comes in. It is extremely unusual for a lecturer to be so vocal about Executive University matters. I don’t like hierarchies, but they exist. The types of opinions that Fink held against the Deans, Chancellor and University should be saved until one has tenure, or is tenure-track. And since his title is “Continuing Lecturer” rather than “Lecturer PSOE or SOE” I don’t think he was part of the Academic Senate, making him even further removed from the process. The job of a lecturer is to teach. Yes they have service responsibilities too, but the level of criticism seems unbalanced with his position. Like in industry, if you constantly criticize the CEO, you will be out. Academia is extremely political, and tolerance for things that conflict with the University’s mission grows with academic level.
While his political beliefs may have caused disdain with his colleagues, I believe what did it was that he used his beliefs to detract from the University’s agenda.
“Like in industry, if you constantly criticize the CEO, you will be out”
An absolutely godawful way to run a college, imo.
You’re arguing, albeit nicely, that it’s okay to silence dissenting voices from a professor because it may conflict with administrator goals for the college. As someone who believes academic freedom necessarily includes that, this strikes me as downright authoritarian. “He was a lecturer, not tenure!” is laaaaame, insanely lame, as an argument.
Colleges are supposed to be about methods of learning, new ideas, etc. What you’re describing is justification for stifling academic freedom in favor of this-or-that bureaucratic plan for the colleges. That’s the thing people are getting mad at, and I hope this story can gain some traction on exactly that basis.
I am not arguing anything. I agree with what you say, I am just explaining the way it currently is. This stuff happens everywhere and it doesn’t make it right, but people will do whatever they can to get rid of someone within the confines of the law once they have decided it.
Ah ok, may have misread your tone. Agreed that this is probably what substantively happened.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/07/28/ucla-professor-fired-conservatism