President Trump has issued executive orders against DEI, but colleges still haven’t remedied their illegal DEI practices that discriminate based on race. For example, the University of Illinois Chicago illegally retaliated against a professor who criticized racially discriminatory hiring policies that discriminated against whites. That professor was forced out of his job and left unemployed for nearly a year as a result. The Liberty Justice Center is fighting back on behalf of the professor:
On February 10, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) on behalf of a professor whose contract was terminated after he criticized the university’s racially discriminatory hiring programs.
Professor Stephen Kleinschmit holds a PhD in Public Administration and was a clinical associate professor in the University of Illinois Chicago’s Department of Public Policy, Management, and Analytics (PPMA) until August 2023. During his time at UIC, he became concerned about the university’s fixation on race when interviewing and hiring faculty—and quickly realized that multiple university programs were illegal under federal law because they regularly used race as a primary or even exclusive factor in hiring decisions.
Professor Kleinschmit objected to these illegal practices and expressed concerns about the discriminatory nature of various university programs to his colleagues and university leadership. On August 15, 2023, the university terminated his contract.
The Liberty Justice Center’s lawsuit alleges that UIC retaliated against Professor Kleinschmit for criticizing its illegal acts of discrimination against its employees and potential applicants—in blatant violation of the right to equal protection under the law. The lawsuit also alleges that university administrators purposely withheld notification of his contract nonrenewal until the academic hiring cycle was concluding, leaving him unemployed for an entire year.
As a public university, the University of Illinois Chicago is a state actor and therefore constitutionally required to respect the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. By discriminating against employees and applicants on the basis of protected, immutable characteristics such as race—and by firing Professor Kleinschmit for objecting to this behavior—the university violated the Fourteenth Amendment and engaged in illegal retaliation.
The Liberty Justice Center’s lawsuit asks the court to order the university to halt its racially discriminatory hiring and retention practices. The suit also seeks financial compensation for the earnings and benefits Professor Kleinschmit lost due to UIC’s illegal actions.
“The University of Illinois Chicago repeatedly engaged in blatant acts of racial discrimination, then added illegal retaliation to the mix to avoid accountability for its unlawful behavior,” said Reilly Stephens, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “These actions are unacceptable violations of the right to equal protection under the law, and we urge the court to put a stop to it immediately.”
“I was fired for speaking out against illegal behavior by the university. I’m grateful to the Liberty Justice Center for taking a stand against institutional corruption and fighting for my constitutional and statutory rights,” said Professor Stephen Kleinschmit, plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Kleinschmit v. University of Illinois Chicago was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, on February 10, 2025.
The Liberty Justice Center’s legal filings in Kleinschmit v. University of Illinois Chicago are available here.
The Liberty Justice Center notes that these acts of retaliation and discrimination violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause and 42 U.S.C. 1981, the law against racial discrimination in contracts.
Federal civil-rights laws generally prohibit discriminating against white people, both in hiring, see, e.g., Janowiak v. South Bend (1987), and in college admissions, see Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023). For example, a college’s racial quota violated 42 U.S.C. 1981. (See Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S 244, 276 n.23 (2003)).
The University of Illinois Chicago also has violated the First Amendment and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. A court ruled that a prison guard’s angry rant against his employer’s affirmative action policies was protected by the First Amendment (except for his use of profanity), in Department of Corrections v. State Personnel Bd., 59 Cal.App.4th 131 (Cal. App. 1997).
Criticism of workplace affirmative action policies is speech about a protected matter of public concern, so firing a public employee for such criticism can violate the First Amendment. See Meyers v. City of Cincinnati, 934 F.2d 726 (6th Cir. 1991).
Generally, workers can sue for retaliation under the civil-rights laws if they are punished for protesting what they reasonably view as unlawful discrimination. For example, workers can sue for retaliation under 42 U.S.C. 1981 and Title VII if they are disciplined for criticizing their employer’s affirmative-action policy, even if the affirmative action policy turns out to be legal. See, e.g., Sisco v. J.S. Alberici Constr. Co., 655 F.2d 146, 147-49 (8th Cir. 1981).
Professors have a right to criticize DEI policies, even if it offends college officials or other people. Controversial speech is the lifeblood of a university. As a federal appeals court noted, “the efficient provision of services by a State university’s law school actually depends, to a degree, on the dissemination in public fora of controversial speech implicating matters of public concern,” and “excessive regulation of the speech of faculty members may actually impair the ability of a law school to function efficiently.” (See Blum v. Schlegel, 18 F.3d 1005, 1011-12 (2d Cir. 1994)).
Disagreement with a professor’s speech about such racial policies is not the sort of disruption for which a professor can be punished. As a court noted, society has a “compelling interest in the unrestrained discussion of racial problems” that militates against censorship of such discussions. (See Belyeu v. Coosa County Bd. of Educ., 998 F.2d 925, 928 (11th Cir. 1993)).
