Leonard Jeffries

[10] Jeffries has stated (but not published)[11] the idea that whites are "ice people" who are violent and cruel, while blacks are "sun people" who are compassionate and peaceful;[12] historian Mia Bay attributes the origins of this hypothesis to the writings of anthropologist Cheik Anta Diop as well as Michael Bradley, author of The Iceman Inheritance.

[11] During a 1991 speech at the Empire State Black Arts and Cultural Festival in Albany, New York, Jeffries asserted that Russian Jews and the American Mafia were behind a conspiracy of Hollywood film producers to denigrate Black people, and that Jews had also controlled the Atlantic slave trade.

[13] In 1992, Jeffries first got his term shortened from three years to one, and then was removed as chair of the department of African-American studies, but allowed to stay as a professor.

[17] The appeals court reversed its decision in April 1995,[18] and in June, Professor Moyibi Amodo was elected to succeed Jeffries as department chair.

[citation needed] Jeffries's case led to debate about tenure, academic freedom and free speech.

[14][19][20] He was sometimes compared to Michael Levin, a CUNY professor who outside the classroom claimed that black people are inferior, and had recently won against the school in court.

[5][2] One interpretation of Jeffries's case is that while a university cannot fire a professor for opinions and speech, it has more flexibility with a position like department chair.

[4] His State of New York consultancy allowed him to produce the document A Curriculum of Inclusion, calling for changing school curricula to include African, Asian and Latino families.