UCLA suspends professor for denying black student 'no harm' final amid George Floyd protests

The University of California, Los Angeles has reportedly suspended a professor for refusing to grant a black student’s request for a “no harm” final exam – which if granted to black students who protested the police killing of George Floyd would not have lowered their average score, regardless of the final grade.

“We have been placed in a position where we must choose between actively supporting our black classmates or focusing on finishing up our spring quarter,” the student said in a June 2 email to accounting professor Gordon Klein, according to the New York Post.

Floyd died May 25 after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest.

According to a petition posted at change.org, Klein "mocked" the student when he replied, “Do you know the names of the classmates [who] are black? ... How can I identify them since we’ve been having online classes only?” 

Klein also reportedly questioned how he should accommodate students of mixed-race heritage or white students from Minneapolis who were directly affected by the rioting and looting in their city and called racists “even if they are not.” 

“Remember,” Klein concluded, Martin Luther King Jr. "famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the color of their skin. ... Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK’s admonition?” 

Appealing to King's color-blind philosophy was, the students said, “inappropriate, tone-dead, and highly insensitive” and demonstrated Klein’s “blatant lack of empathy.”

However, Klein reportedly provided “anti-racist resources” to the student accusing him of racism and had known the student from a previous class. 

Klein, who is on leave until June 24, has vigorously denied that he is racist, telling Fox Business News that his record is “pristine when it comes to accusations relating to alleged discrimination.” 

“I love UCLA and would like to return to what I’ve done for 39 years,” he said.