Tabia Lee, who is Black, is suing a university she was fired from for being what she describes as excessively “woke.”
Lee was the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) director and a tenured faculty member at De Anza Community College, located in Cupertino, California. She was fired in March of this year, and was informed by the school that she would be let go “because of De Anza and the District’s ideological opposition to Dr. Lee’s humanism in the classroom,” according to a 53-page lawsuit filed July 10 per a Newsweek report. The filing goes on to say that she “refused to knuckle under to campus orthodoxy,” which Lee has said was excessively “woke.”
The complaint alleges that the school “illegally targeted White people on the basis of race.” It also says she was accused of “whitesplaining” and not being the “right kind of Black person,” and that she was chastised for leaning into racial stereotypes and declining to use the term “Latinx” instead of “Latinos.”
“They literally marginalized me as an individual,” she told the outlet in an interview.
Her complaint continues: “{Lee} happens to be Black, but first and foremost, Dr. Lee is a teacher dedicated to humanism and civil rights,” the complaint continues. “She teaches that people should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. De Anza is hostile to this concept.” It says Lee’s thinking was opposed to “unchangeable attributes ascribed by characteristics of race and gender beloved by De Anza’s race and gender ideologues.”
Lee claims she was given offensive labels, including “dirty Zionist.”
“I was elevating the wrong people,” others allegedly said, according to Lee. “They called and referred to Jewish people as white oppressors. I had brought speakers into the campus to do antisemitism education and Jewish inclusion education, based on community members coming directly to us and saying they had concerns about our Jewish students at our school.”
Newsweek reports she is seeking her old job, benefits, and financial damages.