UIC law professor says public flashpoint over words used in exam has been ‘absolute hell’
CHICAGO — University of Illinois at Chicago law professor Jason Kilborn said he never could have imagined that a final exam that contained a racial insult to an imaginary woman of color in a pretend civil case would create a campus firestorm that would divide colleagues, lead to his ouster and placement on leave for more than a year.
The tenured professor’s exam question on the December 2020 quiz involved a hypothetical scenario where a Black female manager filed a work discrimination lawsuit after a meeting where colleagues called her a ‘n-----’ and ‘b----,’ shorthand versions of a slur and an insult. Students in his Civil Procedures II course were asked to analyze the account of an imaginary former manager who made the profane statements.
