U. Central Florida Prof. Charles Negy, Fired After Tweeting “Black Privilege is Real,” Ordered Reinstated With Tenure and Back Pay

The treatment of University of Central Florida professor Charles Negy was one of, if not the, most egregious abuses of power in the dozens of ‘cancel culture’ cases we’ve seen. The short version is that shortly after the George Floyd death and in the midst of nationwide protests and riots, Negy made tweets from his personal Twitter account

One tweet, which no longer is available,said:

“If Afr. Americans as a group, had the same behavioral profile as Asian Americans (on average, performing the best academically, having the highest income, committing the lowest crime, etc.), would we still be proclaiming ‘systematic racism’ exists?”

A second tweet, also no longer available, said:

“Black privilege is real: Besides affirm. action, special scholarships and other set asides, being shielded from legitimate criticism is a privilege. But as a group, they’re missing out on much needed feedback.”

The tweets caused student protests, threats, and administrative retribution. There was a Change.org petition with over 30,000 signatures, a Twitter hashtag was launched (#UCFFireHim) that trended, the student Senate passed a resolution, and there were protests on campus in which the President participated.

Recognizing that it could not fire him for the tweets, which were protectect speech, UCF launched an eight-month wide-ranging investigation to find a reason to fire Negy. UCF eventually purported to find reasons, some dating back over a decade, and fired Negy.

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Negy, because he was a union member, took UCF to arbitration, and was represented by counsel appointed by the union. The arbitrator has issued his Arbitration Award, dated May 16, 2022, ordering Negy reinstated with tenure and back pay. Here’s the key conclusions and findings:

What determines the outcome of this dispute is the interpretation of the meaning of Just Cause illuminated and guided by the facts.

The facts persuasive are that we have a professor of some 18 years tenured with consistently outstanding annual evaluations, with three TIP awards, recipient of a special pay adjustment successfully designed to persuade him not to leave UCF. There is no evidence that UCF gave him reason to believe he was anything but as highly esteemed as his evaluations and treatment, with no reason to perform differently.

At some point in 2020 a furor erupts over tweets from his twitter account, activity not related to his duties and also is protected free speech. There ensues a campaign by UCF to find out more about Dr. Negy’s classroom performance as related by his students. UCF reaches out to previous students, gets a number of responses and determines that serious misconduct has been occurring for years, lamenting that no system for detecting such misconduct existed to alert management to such disrepute. And, the misconduct is of such magnitude that the only course of action is immediate termination.

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Negy issued this statement to Legal Insurrection:

The fact that a university would pursue a pretextual investigation with a foregone conclusion to fire a tenured professor because the professor does not conform to “diversity/equity/inclusion” (DEI) ideology is — pretty disgusting in my opinion.  University of Central Florida (UCF) investigated my entire 22 year career with them in search of something–anything–that they believed they could use to justify their firing of me.  Today, after a year and a half of grieving this with the assistance of the United Faculty of Florida’s Union-appointed attorney (H.B. Stiver of Tallahassee, Florida), I learned that I’ve been fully reinstated in my job with full back-pay and benefits. I do anticipate that I will file a lawsuit against UCF really soon.  UCF Administrators (and all university administrators) need to get the message that they cannot simply “purge” or even discipline professors who do not conform to the DEI ideology that they are imposing on entire university campuses.

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