Dr. Daniel McKeown ‘homeless’ UCLA physics lecturer placed on leave after demanding ‘living wage’ after complaining he can’t afford to live and teach in Los Angeles on a $70K salary. The dilemma of being an academic and professor while private schools continue to rake in the big bucks.
A UCLA physics lecturer has brought attention to the plight of would be academics and professors ‘forced’ to live at sometimes diabolically low pay while their ‘private school’ employers continue to raise school fees and seemingly rake in the big bucks for their top officials – except that is for the teachers. Or so it seems.
Dr. Daniel McKeown, an astrophysics lecturer at UCLA’s College of Physical Science, recently shared with his followers that UCLA, his employer, had allegedly placed him on leave as ‘retaliation’ for a (now viral) video he’d released earlier this month to his 48,800 followers (danielastrophysics/TikTok) stating that despite his $70K annual salary that he was homeless and unable to ‘afford’ to live in Los Angeles and ‘effectively’ carry out his teaching obligations.
‘Just go get a second job?’
Forced to get a room-mate to now live in San Diego and unable to physically honor his teaching arrangements, the UCLA professor demanded he be allowed to teach via video conference online. The school according to McKeown refused and according to the professor, ’took away’ his classes in ‘retaliation.’
‘UCLA has placed me on administrative leave, they’ve taken all of my courses that I am teaching this fall away from me without my permission,’ McKeown said in a TikTok posted on Oct. 19.
The statement follows a previous report over the summer in which the warring physics professor threatened to boycott the school after telling his followers that UCLA had responded to his gripe about low pay and ‘to go find a second job.’
Responded McKeown back in July, ‘I already teach 350 to 400 UCLA students per quarter, yet he wants me to get a second job? That’s his solution.’
‘Does that sound like a viable solution for a top-quality education?’ McKeown asked of his followers. ‘UCLA is ranked number 1 in public universities. That’s a disgrace.’
‘I don’t earn enough to pay my rent,’ he continued. ‘UCLA is paying physics professors $70K. With somebody with a PhD and this level of education, that’s unacceptable.’
What’s fair pay? What can the market afford? What can UCLA get away with actually having to pay?
The professor’s seemingly legitimate gripe comes against the backdrop of UCLA’s 2023 public financial reports, which reveal university grant funding that’s grown exponentially in the past few years — even reaching a historic $1.72B last year, suggesting that the school is more than enough in a position to pay its employees an ‘equitable’ living while ‘educating’ enrolled students (the ones who ultimately keep the school alive and increasingly ever in debt with ever increasing school fees and no actual guarantee of a prosperous future upon graduation).
After getting his Ph.D. and struggling through a 10-month job search, McKeown claims his teaching job at UCLA shifted from being a great opportunity to an incredible disappointment despite being ‘one of the best’ universities in his field.
Considering the average salary for a university physics professor is well above $100K a year, as McKeown suggested, he feels taken advantage of by his physics department leadership, especially by his supervisor, who completely disregarded his recent request for a raise.
Stated the UCLA professor over the summer, ‘UCLA thinks it’s okay to steal student’s tuition money, instead of paying professors such as myself a good wage so that we can offer the best and give our students 100%. [My supervisor] told me to get a second job.’
‘I’m not going to surrender,’ he added. ‘UCLA has the money and the resources to give all [professors] fair pay … I’m not going to stop until I get paid at least $100K.’
Dream job becomes nightmare
Fast forward to late October and the ante has only increased with the UCLA physics professor vowing to take his fight up against the school rather than capitulating, aka resigning, accepting his fate or ‘sucking it up’.
Explained Dr. Daniel McKeown in a follow up video days ago, ‘Chair Stuart Brown has retaliated against me for making my story public about how I wasn’t paid enough to afford to work at UCLA.’
In a video posted to YouTube, McKeown called his situation at the university a ‘temporary leave’ along with alluding to the ultimatums he was given for him to return to his position – conditions he refuses to abide by….
‘It’s because (Brown) has not approved an accommodation that I received from my doctor saying that I should be allowed to teach online indefinitely,’ the lecturer said. ‘His offer was that I have to immediately teach in person starting (Oct. 21) of which I am unable to because I was made homeless as a result of low pay.’
‘I was paid so poorly last year and currently that I was forced to move all my belongings into a public storage unit and I can no longer live in my one-bedroom apartment in Westwood,’ McKeown said in the TikTok viewed over 1.6 million times.
McKeown revealed he earned $66,000 last year and was making $70,000 this year, but said he couldn’t afford the $2,500-per-month cost to live in Los Angeles, (try living in NYC where average rents are circa $3.9K a month, for a mere 594sq foot one bedroom) forcing him to move his belongings into storage.
‘Homeless’ UCLA physics ‘hopeless’ battle with school officials
Dr Daniel McKeown claims having attempted to renegotiate his contract with the physics and astronomy department, seeking $200,000 so he could afford his apartment.
‘The chair of my department, Stuart Brown, doesn’t care about how poorly I’m being paid and the fact that he’s cheapened the value of physics for the entire generation.’
McKeown alleged Brown’s greed had reduced the chances of current physics graduate students earning a fair living.
The lecturer also claimed that undergraduate students dreaming of becoming physicists would give up and instead choose another career path.
‘I couldn’t even blame you, because who would want to go and get 10-plus years of advanced education, only to be spit on [by] his own society and his own university system of which he’s a graduate,’ he said.
‘UCLA, they don’t value my own knowledge that I’m giving to students despite extremely high reviews and great accolades for my work.’
‘My university doesn’t value what I do, and the leadership values money and profits over anything else.’
The plight of teachers and academics and students against elite schools
McKeown says he is ‘technically homeless,’ not having a place of his own or any lease.
He had moved into a friend’s place in San Diego, where he began teaching remotely, an action that Brown didn’t agree with.
‘Instead of trying to work with me to negotiate a good strategy so that I could afford to move back to Los Angeles and having some compassion for my struggles and the homelessness that’s been the cause of my problem, he’s placed me on leave and he’s retaliated against me.
‘In addition to failing to compensate university professors, McKeown claimed that many universities like UCLA are also struggling to maintain ethical, fair, and equitable physics departments. “A lot of people who get grant money are not even good researchers,’ he insisted.
‘The system for assigning grant money is completely biased, political, and false. That’s why we have great researchers in universities, like me, getting paid an unlivable wage,’ he added. ‘The newest generation of college students is going to get completely screwed if we don’t do something right now. That’s why I’m not running away from UCLA or resigning.’
Unsurprisingly, McKeown isn’t the first UCLA worker to call out the university’s insufficient wages and poor worker protection rights.
In November 2022, UCLA graduate students orchestrated the largest strike in the history of higher education, with 48,000 participating members demanding better worker protections from the university. While their strike ended with a 50% raise to base pay, many of their other demands — such as free speech rights amidst the pro-Palestine protests and equitable professor wages — have not been met.
