Former U.S. security advisor Paul Buchanan has been dismissed from his Senior Lecturer position at Auckland University in New Zealand for denying a United Arab Emirates student an extension on an already overdue assignment. This came after the student’s (wealthy) family and the UAE threatened action against the university.

The student had claimed that her father’s death prevented her from finishing the assignment—a claim that has not been substantiated—which Buchanan rebuked by saying:

these sort of excuses-culturally driven and preying on some sort of Western liberal guilt-are simply lame.

Though harsh, Buchanan’s email cites the graduate student’s poor performance and infrequent attendance for the denial. Buchanan later reversed himself, granting the student an eight day extension and awarding her a C-. She still called him a racist.