A former Black graduate student at Utah State University is receiving a $45,000 settlement to resolve a lawsuit he filed against his alma mater earlier this year that alleged his professor continually ignored him in class and drew a racist cartoon caricature of him that was displayed n front of the entire class.
Greg Noel, 32, filed a discrimination lawsuit against Utah State in March after he felt targeted and humiliated by his professor.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Noel was using a computer in a lab in 2018, and the computer shorted out. The outage resulted in his work being deleted, which made Noel frustrated. He admitted to using profanities and pushed a chair. His professor was made aware of his outburst and called a one-on-one meeting.
During the meeting, Noel says the professor accused him of being violent and questioned whether he was abusive to other people and his wife. He also asked Noel, “Was that you going full Haitian?” the suit alleges.
He was the only Black student in the marriage and family therapy program and is of Haitian descent. The school’s student population is 82 percent white and less than 1 percent Black.
After the 2018 incident, Noel said the professor would purposefully ignore him during class discussions. The professor would also continually mention how much power he had over the graduate students and their careers, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Noel reached his breaking point in 2020. He said that his white professor drew a cartoon image that Noel felt was an exaggerated picture of him as “the angry Black man.”
The drawing showed Noel’s well-groomed afro sticking out wildly and taller. His skin tone was darker, his eyebrows were thicker, he had an angry facial expression, and his mustache was much thicker in the picture.
The professor didn’t realize others could see the picture, but he played a pre-recorded training on a screen at the front of the classroom, and the…
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