Professor Sues Hawaii Law School After Campus Ban For Creating Hostile Work Environment Following Boycott Of Black History Month Event With No Black Speakers

Honolulu Civil Beat, UH Law School Instructor Says He Was Banned For Criticizing ‘Nice Racism’:

A prominent instructor at the University of Hawaii’s law school has sued the school, alleging the dean, unnamed faculty and a university provost retaliated against him by banning him from the law school campus after he criticized and organized a boycott against a Black History Month event that did not include any Black person as a panelist, facilitator or organizer.

Kenneth Lawson’s complaint, filed Monday in federal court in Honolulu, names as defendants the University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law; law school Dean Camille Nelson; Michael Bruno, provost of the University of Hawaii Manoa, and other unnamed faculty members.

While he has been banned from campus, Lawson said the school still hasn’t addressed the issue he raised.

“One could only imagine the uproar it would create if (Richardson law school) colleagues tried to stage a program on Native Hawaiian activism without including a Native Hawaiian on the panel, or a program on antisemitism without including a single Jewish person, or on AJA in Hawaii without including any AJAs,” the complaint says. “It could only be imagined for a very simple reason: It has never happened, nor will it ever happen.” ...

According to Lawson’s suit, a February 2023 event was hosted by the law school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. Billed as a Black History Month event, the DEI committee’s gathering included a lunchtime discussion of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” but the event involved no Black people as organizers or speakers, the complaint asserts.

According to the complaint, Lawson raised concerns about the event at a Feb. 17 faculty meeting, where he “explained that failing to include anyone of Black ancestry in the event was an example of unconscious racial bias.” ...

The investigation into whether Lawson has created a hostile environment at Richardson comes as Lawson has been fighting for equal pay with other faculty who teach far less than Lawson, but instead publish books and law review articles.

Although Lawson’s official title is “Faculty Specialist,” he teaches far more classes than many people who hold the title “professor.” Lawson’s status is what the law school calls “S” faculty, which means he earns much less than colleagues who are classified as “J” faculty.  ...

[O]ne chart shows that Lawson in 2020 taught classes comprising 34 credit hours to 295 students. His salary of $113,222 made him one of Richardson’s lowest-paid professors. ... Professor Lawson, despite having been improperly classified as S-Faculty, has regularly taught 30 to 40 credit hours annually while his J-Faculty colleagues have been permitted to teach 6 to 12 credit hours annually.”