Live Online Policy Forum 

# What to Do When You’re the Wrong Kind of Black Academic 

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Date and Time 

April 13, 2023 3 - 4:30 PM EDT 

Location 

Live Online 

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##### Featuring 

![Tabia-Lee-cropped.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-04/Tabia-Lee-cropped.jpg?itok=o08LlCaH) 

Tabia Lee 

Cofounder, Free Black Thought

[![ErecSmith-cropped.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-02/ErecSmith-cropped.jpg?itok=p8wlcACq)](/people/erec-smith) 

[Erec Smith](/people/erec-smith)

Research Fellow, Cato Institute, and Cofounder, Free Black Thought

[ 

](https://x.com/Rhetors_of_York) 

Recently, De Anza Community College fired **Tabia Lee** as its faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice and Multicultural Education for taking an inclusive and dialogical approach to her job that did not align with the school’s particular version of social justice. What makes this different from others who have lost their jobs for not toeing this ideological line? Lee is black, and she was accused of being a white supremacist. **Erec Smith** of York College of Pennsylvania has also been vilified for questioning the efficacies of contemporary anti-racist theories and practices.

In this online forum, Lee and Smith will discuss their experiences and theorizations about being black academics who embrace classical liberal values in academic spaces that seem to grow increasingly hostile to such views, especially from people of color. As cofounders of Free Black Thought, an organization that celebrates viewpoint diversity among black Americans, their perspective may provide a different and nuanced understanding of social justice and anti-racist initiatives in higher education (and beyond).

## Additional Resources

- “[College DEI Director Reveals She Was Fired For Not Being “Woke” Enough, with Dr. Tabia Lee](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYwtUYhlFaE),” on *The Megyn Kelly Show*
- “[Erec Smith discusses diversity, equity, and inclusion training’s unintended consequences on *Stossel TV*](https://www.cato.org/multimedia/media-highlights-tv/erec-smith-discusses-diversity-equity-inclusion-trainings-unintended)”
- “[A Black DEI Director Canceled by DEI](https://compactmag.com/article/a-black-dei-director-canceled-by-dei),” by Tabia Lee
- “[What to Do When You’re the Wrong Kind of Black Person](https://www.discoursemagazine.com/culture-and-society/2021/11/16/what-to-do-when-youre-the-wrong-kind-of-black-person/),” by Erec Smith

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