A Black Utah State University graduate is suing his alma mater claiming the school inadequately investigated a 2020 racial discrimination complaint against a professor.
The former student accused the instructor of drawing a “coon caricature” of the Haitian-American and accidentally showing it during class.
The school disputes his claim, stating it found no evidence of racial discrimination while confirming there was evidence of hostile environment discrimination.
In his lawsuit, Greg Noel, 32, alleges that during his matriculation through Utah State’s graduate school program, one prominent professor in the marriage and family therapy program not only harassed him but “embarrassed him in front of his peers,” The Salt Lake Tribune reports.
The complaint accuses Utah State of deliberately being indifferent to his reports that his civil rights were being violated based on his race and nationality by a person on the university payroll.
Noel and his lawyers are seeking unspecified financial damages to cover both the cost of his tuition and the anguish he suffered at the hands of the professor.
They are also asking for the letter of reprimand to be placed in the professor’s file.
“I just want accountability for USU to practice what they preach,” he said
Noel’s lawyers detail several instances where Noel felt the teacher negatively alluded to his race and nationality in conversations and used derogatory stereotypes to mandate counseling sessions or face expulsion from the program.
The incident that pushed Noel over was seeing the professor’s stylized sketch of him that resembled post-slavery artwork from the late 19th and early 20th century. The professor, who is unnamed in the lawsuit, was showing a prerecorded training video in class. He did not realize the drawing on his computer screen was being projected on the screen playing the video and that the entire cohort present could see it.
According to the…
Read the full article here
