A University of Chicago economics professor will return to his journal editor post after the school reviewed a claim that he scorned Martin Luther King Jr. during class, determining there was “not a basis” for more investigation.
The university announced on Monday that it finished reviewing claims that professor Harald Uhlig made discriminatory comments during class and that he will be reinstated as lead editor of the Journal of Political Economy, a renowned academic publication printed by the school’s press.
“The University has completed a review of claims that a faculty member engaged in discriminatory conduct on the basis of race in a University classroom,” university spokesman Gerald McSwiggan wrote in a Monday statement. “The review concluded that at this time there is not a basis for a further investigation or disciplinary proceeding.”
Uhlig, a tenured professor who has worked at the university for over a decade, including a stint as chair of the esteemed economics department, was placed on leave from the editing job earlier this month after a former student claimed in a tweet that the instructor mocked King, discussed holding class on his namesake holiday and asked the student, who is Black, whether his comments offended him.
“I sat in your class in Winter 2014: (1) You talked about scheduling a class on MLK Day (2) You made fun of Dr. King and people honoring him (3) You sarcastically asked me in front of everyone whether I was offended,” wrote Bocar A. Ba, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Uhlig told the Tribune in a statement he does not recall the incident, but he said he wrote to Ba, “My most sincere apology that I may have offended you.”
“Martin Luther King is not only a national hero, he is a global hero, an inspiration to us all and someone I deeply admire,” Uhlig wrote to the Tribune on Tuesday. “I am thus relieved that the university decision has helped rectify a wrong image of mine, which people might have read into the incident.”
The university typically does not intervene when faculty members voice controversial opinions but launched an initial fact-finding probe after Ba’s tweet.
“The University of Chicago does not tolerate intimidating, hostile or offensive discriminatory behavior that targets groups or individuals, and we take seriously any matter that interferes with educational program participation,” McSwiggan wrote.
Ba, who previously told the Tribune he wants to focus on his work, declined an interview, as did other academics who tweeted that they witnessed the apparent incident.
The claim of Uhlig’s classroom comments surfaced after criticism erupted over the professor’s tweets this month likening Black Lives Matter activists who are calling for defunding the police to flat-earthers and creationists.
“Sigh. #GeorgeFloyd and his family really didn’t deserve being taken advantage of by flat-earthers … and creationists,” Uhlig tweeted on June 8. “Oh well. Time for sensible adults to enter back into the room and have serious, earnest, respectful conversations about it all: e.g. policy reform proposals by @TheDemocrat and national healing.”
That, along with past blog posts, including one asking whether it is OK for football players to wave the Confederate flag and dress in Ku Klux Klan outfits during the national anthem, fed into ire from hundreds of academics and others demanding he resign as the JPE editor.
After realizing the opinions on Twitter and his blog “apparently irritated” people, Uhlig apologized in a June 9 tweet and said he could have used better comparisons and word choice.
The backlash prompted some supporters of Uhlig to deride the so-called cancel culture that they say inhibits freedom of speech in academic settings. In his email, Uhlig condemned the pushback on his comments from other economists such as Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair who said it would be “appropriate” to reassess his editor role.
“People should speak freely,” he wrote. “It is highly problematic for Janet Yellen as president of the American Economic Association to criticize one of its members for executing its right to free speech.”
But professor Gary Hoover, University of Oklahoma’s economics department chair, said the online outrage is a natural response within the academic ecosystem, which he believes has a long way to go before reaching racial equity. Just over 5% of economics degrees are awarded to Black people each year, according to the American Economic Association.
Hoover, who is Black, said he isn’t certain about whether Uhlig should step down from his editor role. But the entire experience should be treated as a reckoning within economics departments on incentivizing diversity.
“One thing I find very interesting about us economists is we sure know how to teach economics. We don’t seem to be very good at actually using it,” Hoover said. “When you don’t put proper mechanisms and proper policy in place, then these are the natural outgrowths of that. So no one should be surprised.”
