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.
Days after the exam, Kilborn’s boss reached out for a Zoom meeting to discuss the use of the question. The professor offered to send a note of regret to his class and had another Zoom meeting, this time with the local Black student association to discuss concerns.
