The former director of the African and African American Studies program at the University of Arkansas is suing the school over his termination from the role and pending firing from his teaching positions. The moves against him, he argues, is retaliation after he complained of a racial remark made against him by the dean, who is now pushing for the professor to be fired.
Professor portrays firing as retaliation for racial discrimination complaint
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported that Professor Najja K. Baptist recently filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court, fighting a decision in March that removed him as director of the University of Arkansas’ program for African and African American Studies. The decision to remove Baptist from this role was made by Brian Raines, who serves as dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences; Raines also recommended at the time that Baptist, a tenured professor, be removed from his professorship. The university has portrayed the decision as the result of an internal audit, which concluded that Baptist could not justify tens of thousands of dollars of research and travel expenses. Baptist’s lawyers, however, allege that the process has been flawed and the motivation behind the review was retaliatory against Baptist for an earlier complaint he filed.
According to Baptist’s attorney, the review of Baptist’s travel expenses came only after the professor complained about a “racially charged remark” that Raines is alleged to have made against Baptist over a Zoom meeting in early 2025. According to another person participating in the Zoom call, Raines said ”something like, ‘This is why people can’t be trusted with leadership,’” according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Baptist took the remark to be aimed at him and his leadership style, and Baptist’s lawsuit alleges that Raines was remarking on how Black people in faculty and managerial positions “did not know how to handle stress,” the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported. The University of Arkansas’ Office of Equal Opportunity, Compliance and Title IX looked into Baptist’s complaints about the meeting, ruling in October that he had not been subjected to racial harassment or discrimination.
Baptist complains of unfair scrutiny; second professor alleging improper firing
Baptist’s lawyer, JJ Thompson Sr., argues that it was only after his complaint against Raines that the university began scrutinizing his travel. The internal audit concluded that over $48,000 in research spending across 15 trips ‘appeared questionable as business related through interviews, observations, examination of source documents and email, as well as publicly available media sources, and discussions with university management,” according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazaette. University representatives argued that Baptist spent funds connected to personal trips such as his wedding reception and honeymoon, while Baptist’s lawyer point toward trips such as a visit to the site of a former plantation that Baptist argues was incorrectly determined to be a personal trip rather than a research trip.
The lawsuit by Baptist to challenge his firing follows a complaint he made with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in which he alleged discrimination and retaliation. Baptist followed that with a right to sue letter in January. Thompson, Baptist’s lawyer, is also representing professor Shirin Saeidi, who was fired by the University of Arkansas after making statements and advocacy that were seen as pro-Iran and anti-Israel, including advocating for Palestine and for Iranian officials. Saeidi, who also served as director of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies, was censored by the university after advocating for Palestine and for Iranian officials, including former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a U.S. strike at the beginning of the current Iran war. Saeidi also called for Israel to be “dismantled by international forces,” according to a reprimand from Raines, who warned that such comments could be hostile toward the university’s Israeli and Jewish students, per ABC 7. Saeidi was fired by the university’s president, Jay Silveria, despite the University of Arkansas Faculty Committee on Appointment, Promotion and Tenure voting unanimously to restore her to her associate professor position. Baptist, meanwhile, has received support from organizations such as the American Political Science Association.
Now, professors Baptist and Saeidi are both being represented by Thompson, who claims each academic was improperly fired from their positions. The University of Arkansas has defended its decisions to remove both scholars from their leadership and academic positions, setting up a series of legal fights over the two firings and the ways in which the university interprets and enforces its standards of research and discourse for faculty.