Has law prof been fired over tweets? He says it might not be technically true—yet
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A professor at the University of Miami School of Law is at odds with his school over whether he has been fired for racially insensitive tweets.
Daniel Ravicher, a lecturer at the law school, said in a Nov. 13 tweet that he had been fired because he refuses to censor his speech and apologize. The only uncertainty, he tweeted, is whether his firing will be at the end of his contract or sooner “if the school can fabricate a performance-related reason.”
Ravicher’s contract ends in May 2022. The tweets at the center of controversy concern his claims that Black voters allow Democrats to take them for granted, and their clout will diminish in comparison to Latinos as their population grows more slowly because of differing abortion rates between the two groups.
Law.com covered the controversy, the firing tweet and the response by Anthony Varona, the law dean at the school. Ravicher “has not been terminated, nor has he been removed from his course. We are not sure why he is saying or suggesting otherwise,” Varona said in the statement to Law.com.
Ravicher stuck to his claim that he had been fired in an interview with Law.com. It “might not be true, technically speaking” that he has been fired, Ravicher said. “But when someone says you’re not going to be renewed and something might happen sooner, to me that’s being fired. What I’m trying to say is I’m quitting by refusing to do what they want.”
Ravicher tweeted an update Nov. 16.
“Latest on my situation is that supposedly I’m going to be fired for saying I’ve been fired because I haven’t yet been fired but will be fired,” he tweeted.
Students told the Miami Hurricane, the student newspaper, that they saw racist overtones in Ravicher’s tweet about Black voters.
Ravicher had tweeted: “Blacks allow themselves to be taken for granted and treated horribly by Democrats. Latinos don’t. Also, population difference will grow bc Blacks have 50% more abortions than Latinos per cap.”
“So in conclusion, with their being many more Latino voters than Black voters and a higher rate of Latino voters being swing voters, it is my opinion that Latino voters have more political power than Black voters in America today. Again, I welcome disagreement and debate!”
Sixteen faculty members also criticized Ravicher’s tweets in a letter published by the Miami Hurricane. They said Ravicher had not only “made several uninformed claims about race, ethnicity and identity,” he had also made baseless claims about election fraud, compared calls for political accountability to the Holocaust, and implied the need to use lethal force against protesters.
Ravicher told the Miami Hurricane that he teaches about 150 students per year, and he gets outstanding evaluations.
“I’ve never, to my knowledge, ever been accused by any student of any bias ever,” Ravicher said. “Indeed, the top student in my course over the summer was a Black woman. My direct boss is a Black woman, as is my assistant. Neither of them has ever, to my knowledge, accused me of being racist. I’m also married to a woman of color. But, if people want to call me racist, I guess that’s their right.”
