(Wall Street Journal) The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said Friday it had cut ties with a University of Chicago economics professor who was a scholar at the bank, following his criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Harald Uhlig has drawn condemnation for his comments about the Black Lives Matter movement and calls to defund U.S. police departments.
The Chicago Fed said it terminated Mr. Uhlig’s contract effective Friday.
A bank spokeswoman said the move “reflects our determination that his views are not compatible with the Chicago Fed’s values and our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Mr. Uhlig said in an email that “termination of my contract is their prerogative.”
Earlier this week, on Twitter, Mr. Uhlig said Black Lives Matter had “just torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice” and said it was “time for sensible adults to enter back into the room and have serious, earnest, respectful conversations about it all.”
He later said “my tweets in recent days and an old blog post have apparently irritated a lot of people. That was far from my intention: let me apologize for that.”
Too bad, but #blacklivesmatter per its core organization @Blklivesmatter just torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice : "We call for a national defunding of police." Suuuure. They knew this is non-starter, and tried a sensible Orwell 1984 of saying,
— Harald Uhlig (@haralduhlig) June 9, 2020
Lots of store signs “Black owned … don’t”. Store owners apparently assume that looters are also racists, willing to inflict damage on white owners just because of the color of their skin. Looting is wrong. Racism is wrong. pic.twitter.com/zyLa6rbRak
— Harald Uhlig (@haralduhlig) June 4, 2020
