ORLANDO, Fla. — The University of Central Florida professor whose Twitter posts prompted thousands of people to call for his firing said Thursday he thinks the university, which has opened an inquiry into student complaints of classroom misconduct, has already sided against him and he is the subject of a “witch hunt.”
The university started an inquiry on June 4 after reports of “possible discriminatory and other inappropriate behavior” by Charles Negy, who gained national attention after many students and alumni called his tweets racist.
“They’re actively soliciting complaints against me because I’m a political inconvenience for them at the moment,” Negy said.
But many students and others are frustrated UCF hasn’t yet taken action. UCF President Alexander Cartwright said during a Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday the university is conducting a thorough investigation and the process will take time.
Thursday’s meeting marked the first time most board members have met in-person since late March. Trustees and employees wore masks and sat between plexiglass dividers. Several members, however, still participated via video conference.
Cartwright described Negy’s tweets as “abhorrent” and “disturbing,” but said those messages are protected by the First Amendment.
“The Constitution restricts our ability to fire him or any other university employee for expressing personal opinions about matters of public concern. This is the law,” Cartwright said.
But Negy’s behavior while on campus is another matter, he said.
“No one’s personal views should lead them to mistreat our students or any employee in any university setting,” Cartwright said. “This type of conduct is not protected. This is not free speech.”
Negy, an associate professor in the psychology department, said the university has not contacted him about the investigation and he’s uncertain of the nature of the complaints against him. He said accusations posted on Twitter that he’s treated students unfairly are not true.
On Thursday, Cartwright said anyone who feels they have faced discrimination or bias by a faculty member should contact UCF’s Office of Institutional Equity. Many students who had complained about Negy in the past had done so through their course evaluations, he said, which are primarily intended as feedback for the instructor and unlikely to trigger a university inquiry.
Cartwright said he’s realized during the past couple of weeks the university needs to communicate to people where and how they can report misconduct.
Negy, who said he’s gay and bi-ethnic, teaches a course called Cross-Cultural Psychology, which he said takes “a critical look” at different groups. He said some students take offense to his lessons and about 10% to 15% of his students typically report he’s a “horrible” professor in their end-of-course evaluations.
As UCF reviews the complaints against Negy, the university has contacted students enrolled in his Sexual Behavior course during the late summer term, which starts Monday, to tell them it has added a second section of the course taught by a different instructor.
“We are giving students the option to switch to that class if they choose,” Cartwright said.
Also on Thursday, Cartwright outlined changes the university plans to implement to cultivate a more diverse and inclusive environment, including providing implicit bias training for employees who make hiring decisions and requiring equity and diversity training for people in senior leadership positions across campus.
“We must do a better job of promoting a culture of inclusion and holding each other accountable to speak out,” Cartwright said. “UCF is not a place where anyone should ever feel they cannot be their true selves or that they are not supported because of who they are or what they look like.”
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