Letter from Nadine Strossen to Columbia President Lee Bollinger

BY NADINE STROSSEN

The following is a letter to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger from Nadine Strossen, the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School, Past National President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), and author of HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship.

Dear Lee,

Again, it was a pleasure to share the podium with you at the recent Columbia Law School event about social media free speech issues, and I look forward to the book you and Geof are co-editing on point.

I am writing now about other free speech/academic freedom issues directly concerning Columbia:  namely, the EOAA complaint against Dinah PoKempner, an adjunct professor at Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. The complaint arose from her use of the “N-word” in a course on international human rights law, in a class specifically about the treatment of “hate speech” in various legal systems. As you know, the controversy has been reported in various publications, including the Spectator and the New York Post. My understanding of the situation results from the press coverage, and the accompanying videotape of Prof. PoKempner’s statements that spurred the complaint. These materials show that Prof. PoKempner had valid pedagogical reasons for using the word, to demonstrate (among other things) that racial justice advocates may invoke it strategically in pursuing litigation against white supremacists. To be sure, as Prof. PoKempner herself has acknowledged, she may be faulted for not having been sufficiently sensitive to students’ potential negative reactions to the word notwithstanding her positive pedagogical purpose. However, when students voiced those negative reactions, she immediately and repeatedly apologized, and invited them to discuss their concerns at length.

Given your positions as both Columbia’s President and one of the nation’s foremost First Amendment scholars, I urge you to use this incident as an opportunity to clarify and reaffirm the University’s policies on academic freedom, and to affirm that Prof. PoKempner was acting within the bounds of that freedom, while violating no University policies.

The Spectator summarizes the pertinent University policies as follows: “According to the University’s faculty handbook, an ‘important part’ of a faculty member’s duties is to `engage their students in discussions about issues that are contentious and emotionally charged’ and `to challenge them to reexamine deeply held beliefs,’  but such endeavors must be completed with `civility, tolerance, and respect for ideas that differ from their own.’ When faculty fail to uphold these tenets, students are encouraged to meet with the faculty member and seek resolution or undergo grievance procedures within their respective schools.”

The facts reported, as well as the video, demonstrate  that Prof. PoKempner honored her duties as a faculty member,  because she did “engage [her] students in issues that are contentious and emotionally charged”; she did “challenge them to reexamine deeply held beliefs”; and she did  treat them with “civility, tolerance and respect.” Indeed, there is some concern that Columbia officials may have violated her rights (and her students’ rights) by sharing a recording of the Zoom class with Prof. PoKempnner’s employers at Human Rights Watch, who terminated her employment after viewing the video. As Adam Steinbaugh of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) said of the situation (as quoted in a 4/20/21 article): “While some may find those words or images objectionable or offensive, academic freedom gives breathing room to faculty members to determine whether and how to discuss relevant materials. A class discussing what the First Amendment protects will naturally raise the likelihood of hearing or seeing words people find offensive. While students have the right to criticize those choices or to complain about them, an investigation or punishment by the university would be a marked departure from its commitment to academic freedom.”

Ironically, I’m writing this letter on the very same day (5/2/21) that the Sunday New York Times published a guest essay by Columbia professor John McWhorter on the use of the “N-word,” in which he spells out the full word repeatedly — in fact, 34 times. An accompanying essay by the Times‘ editors explains why they thought it necessary and appropriate to publish the slur. Should Prof. McWhorter come under fire from Columbia students (or others) for his essay, I hope you will defend his rights as well.

With sincere thanks for your attention, as well as deep respect and best regards, Nadine.

11 thoughts on “Letter from Nadine Strossen to Columbia President Lee Bollinger

  1. Star Trek’s Black female Lt. Uhura, called once by another race, a “Negress,” was not offended whatsoever she said, and replied, “In our century, we’ve learned to not be afraid of words.”

    Otherwise, the law professor is making an interesting appeal to her institutional authority (who has none in this kind of matter–one does not ask for, or need, permission to enjoy (un) enumerated rights, even at so-called private institutions), but it seems tenuous as to whether her enthusiasm for the First Amendment otherwise applies equally to any other epithet, real or imagined. I would suspect it does not, and it is obvious that the indulgence of the “N-word” in agenda media as she describes, is not about the freedom to so invoke it, as it is the opportunism to deploy it for coercive moralism and ‘shaming” purposes, as White guilt, terror and reparations are all the rage in the law academy, especially at the primary legal reconstruction schools of which Columbia is comfortably nested. Regards, ’96, UChicago; ’84, UTexas Austin

  2. I would like to nitpick one argument that is used above because it is a premise that is used only for apparent leftists, liberals, and Democrats: “To be sure, as Prof. PoKempner herself has acknowledged, she may be faulted for not having been sufficiently sensitive to students’ potential negative reactions to the word notwithstanding her positive pedagogical purpose.”

    When *I* was thought to be “insensitive,” I was accused of using a MICRO-aggression and I was forced to resign an adjunct Full Professorship, lose almost a whole semester’s pay, and suffer a loss of dignity and reputation. *I* also had a “positive pedagogical purpose” in using the term “‘hood” in class and ended up suffering the consequences because I was misunderstood (or too rigorous with grades and students who didn’t submit their work or read the textbook) by three out of thirty students.

    Here’s my story. Let Prof. PoKempner get the same treatment — OR, let AAUP come to MY defense.

    https://www.academia.edu/23593134/A_Leftist_Critique_of_Political_Correctness_Gone_Amok_Revised_and_Updated

    I’m waiting …

  3. Thank you for posting this letter here. We have a case on this issue at The Ohio State University, I will share this letter with our chapter’s Committee A chair, and also with our university’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility.

    • Sure, just pass it on through channels. Ignore MY comments and situation, as per usual.

  4. As a side point: so much for any idea that HRW supports free speech–clearly they would like to cancel Israel the way they have canceled Prof. PoKempner.

  5. > …let AAUP come to MY defense.

    Ah, wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that, Prof. Tomasulo.

    As regards the letter itself, Columbia will not, of course, say a word to Prof. McWhorter about his recent op-ed. Institutions target the vulnerable, and nothing I’ve heard about Prof. McWhorter, though I don’t know him personally, leads me to believe that he would not respond fiercely, and effectively, to any trespass upon his academic freedom.

    Adjunct professors are the gazelles of the academic herd: easily picked off. This blog-post, I venture to predict, will represent the limit of the AAUP’s involvement in the case also.

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