Kenneth Lawson, a well-known professor at University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa – William S. Richardson School of Law, is suing the school, alleging the dean, unnamed faculty and a university provost barred him from campus after he organized and boycotted a Black History Month Event, the Honolulu Civil Beat reported.
Lawson, who is Black, was upset that the school’s Black History Month event did not include a Black person as a panelist, facilitator or organizer.
Lawson filed a complaint in federal court, which names the dean and the provost along with other UH Richardson Law School faculty. Camille Nelson, the law school dean, is also Black.
The Black History Month event was put on by the law school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion committee in February and was centered around a discussion of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”
Lawson claims there has still been no explanation given to him by the school about this issue, according to the Honolulu Civil Beat.
