Klock arbitrarily moved Feldman from a 12-month to a nine-month contract and reduced his pay by almost $30,000. The dean also refused to pay for Feldman's benefits and family health care for three months in 2009.
Klock then initiated efforts to question Feldman's "academically qualified" status for accreditation purposes. This came even though Feldman had been deemed "academically qualified" throughout his tenure at UAB and had survived previous accreditation processes with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
Feldman's complaint outlines a pattern of such abuses in the UAB School of Business under Klock:
Klock then initiated efforts to question Feldman's "academically qualified" status for accreditation purposes. This came even though Feldman had been deemed "academically qualified" throughout his tenure at UAB and had survived previous accreditation processes with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
Feldman's complaint outlines a pattern of such abuses in the UAB School of Business under Klock:
As part of this pattern and practice, UAB and the School of Business administration have engaged in a long series of acts of creating a hostile work environment for those faculty who do not fit within this conservative, affluent, white atmosphere. Other faculty members who are minorities and women have suffered similar conduct as complained of by the Plaintiff, while similarly situated conservative white employees have not.
This all hits close to home for your humble blogger. As a former UAB employee, I know from firsthand experience that the above statement from Feldman's complaint is based in fact. I was fired largely because I chose to write, on my own time, what could be called a progressive blog. There is no doubt in my mind that I would still be working at UAB if I had chosen to write a conservative blog.
It also hits close to home because I know Glenn Feldman personally. I interviewed him several times during my time at UAB and always found him to be informed, insightful, and engaging. In fact I wrote the following article for UAB Magazine about one of Feldman's books, "From Demagogue to Dixiecrat: Horace Wilkinson and the Politics of Race."
Unions in Dixie: Labor and Race in the South
That article was written in 1999, before George W. Bush was "elected" president of the Unites States in 2000, before Carol Garrison was named president of UAB in 2001, and before Bob Riley "defeated" Don Siegelman for governor of Alabama in 2002.
Exploration of what might be called progressive ideas was encouraged at UAB back in 1999. But the university has taken a decidedly rightward turn since then--and that has led to considerable ugliness.
Glenn Feldman's lawsuit is just the latest example of that.
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