PBAU professor fired over teaching of racial justice files discrimination complaint
A former Palm Beach Atlantic University professor fired after a parent complained he was “indoctrinating” students with lessons about racial justice has filed a federal complaint arguing that his termination was racially motivated.
Former English Professor Samuel Joeckel said in a statement Monday that a discrimination complaint he filed last week with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was “the next step towards justice.”
“PBA’s decision to terminate my employment was motivated by race,” he said, “and I look forward to working with the EEOC as they investigate the unlawful actions taken by PBA.”
“I am hopeful that this will not only right the wrongs that PBA committed against me,” he continued, “but also protect faculty members at PBA and other schools.”
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Investigating parental complaint of 'indoctrinating' PBAU students
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has authority to investigate and prosecute discrimination complaints against employers. Filing a complaint with the agency is also a precursor to filing a federal employment discrimination lawsuit.
Federal law prohibits employers from discriminating against workers based on their race, gender or certain other protected characteristics.
Joeckel, who is white, has not argued he was fired because of his race. His attorney, Gabe Roberts, said his complaint relies on a legal concept called “associational discrimination,” where someone believes they were wrongfully discriminated against for their association with members of a protected class.
“If an employment decision is motivated by a protected characteristic such as race, that is an unlawful employment practice in this country,” Roberts said in a statement. “We are looking forward to working with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on its investigation.”
Administrators at PBAU did not respond to messages seeking comment Monday.
In February, administrators at the school in downtown West Palm Beach told Joeckel they were investigating a concern raised by a parent that he was "indoctrinating" his students by incorporating lessons about racial justice into his writing composition course.
Joeckel, who had taught at the 3,700-student Christian school for two decades, said he had long used teachings about racial justice to illustrate his writing lessons.
Students in Joeckel's class read and analyzed passages about the topic, discussed them and wrote short essays of their own, he said.
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But he said he did not express his own opinions on the issues examined and did not require students to take a certain stance on them.
Administrators had never expressed concerns about his lessons before, he said. He attributed the school's new concern about his lessons to an "‘anti-woke’ crusade from Governor DeSantis and other far-right politicians and activists."
When administrators alerted Joeckel that he was being investigated, the professor took to Instagram to announce what had happened.
The post spread quickly, drawing national media attention and a campaign by some of Joeckel's students to protect his job. They submitted a letter of support to university leaders with hundreds of signatures from present and former students. An online petition to save his job drew more than 1,800 signatures.
Still, in mid-March, Joeckel announced that the school had "made the disappointing decision to terminate my contract early."
Roberts said in an interview that he hopes an EEOC investigation will result in Joeckel being offered his job back with a guarantee that he and other professors at the school have sufficient academic freedom.
But he said the primary goal is to call the agency's attention to the internal policies and practices that prompted administrators to crack down on Joeckel.
“The first goal is to have the underlying issues addressed," he said. "There clearly is something going on at the university."
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: PBAU professor fired over racial justice teaching files EEOC complaint
