April 4, 2007

Words He Can’t Escape

Students at the George Mason University School of Law received a double whammy last week: First, Dean Daniel D. Polsby sent an e-mail informing them of a “special town hall meeting” scheduled for Monday where they could meet a candidate for a tenure-track job — a 22-year-old candidate who had once posted online class notes containing a racial epithet while a law student at Harvard in 2002. Then the next day, Polsby canceled the meeting, writing that the controversial would-be professor “is no longer a candidate.”

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The unusual step of creating a student forum for a job candidate reflected the recurrent controversy over the remarks, immortalized on the Web through various blogs, sites and news articles. As originally reported in Harvard Law’s The Record newspaper in 2002, Kiwi Camara had posted notes from a criminal law course to a popular online outline database, attaching a note warning readers of potentially offensive language. His shorthand included using the word “nig” to refer to African Americans, as in: “Nigs buy land w/ no nig covenant; Q: Enforceable?”

Camara has repeatedly apologized in the years since. “I realize it was a serious mistake on my part, and I’ve apologized for it many times,” he said. And the issue hasn’t only come up at George Mason: Camara said it’s derailed other potential appointments in the past, too. “A number of law schools have said informally that that’s the reason why they can’t make an appointment ... I think it is a major problem, and understandably so.”

Sure enough, the announcement of Camara’s candidacy immediately led to criticism. Rex Flynn, a third-year student who is president of the Black Law Students Association, said in an e-mail that his organization “decided to reserve judgment and wait to adopt a position after we heard Prof. Camara speak at the town hall meeting.” That never happened, but their concerns were concrete. “We are entitled to be free from having to wonder whether our grades are the result of our substantive analysis or the color of our skin.”

For most students, a controversial phrase would stop haunting them at graduation. But Camara was no ordinary student. After graduating at age 19, the youngest in Harvard Law’s history, the Filipino-American went on to win several Olin fellowships, at Harvard, Stanford and the Northwestern University School of Law, where he is currently teaching. He had a symposium article published in the Yale Law Journal. At each step, the words he wrote as a teenage 1L have followed in his wake, sometimes bubbling over again into the public sphere — especially after the news of his article’s acceptance hit Yale’s campus last year.

Which is why, after hearing that Camara was no longer a candidate to join the faculty, many assumed it was the skeletons in his closet, or, as some have contended, the youthful indiscretions that should have been forgiven long ago. But Polsby specifically noted in his e-mail to students that Camara was “no longer a candidate” for reasons “separate from those that prompted me to call the meeting.” He was out of town on Tuesday, but a member of the faculty confirmed that it was an unrelated issue that arose after the original announcement, ending the hiring process.

What that issue might be is not known, although there has been speculation about unspecified political pressure. Faculty proceedings are confidential, and Camara would not say who ended the proceedings. Unlike some law schools, which require a supermajority, the faculty votes by simple majority to give the dean the authority to make an offer. Once that was done, it was Polsby’s decision to go directly to the student body.

The incident has already sparked discussion online. Faculty members at GMU Law were hesitant to describe their reactions to the incident, but opinions are reportedly mixed among both students and faculty. If some were disappointed at how the proceedings ended, they weren’t alone: Camara himself said he was dismayed by the outcome. “Yes, I was surprised. ... I was really impressed by the faculty there. I had the feeling of what you might imagine the University of Chicago was like 30 or 40 years ago” for economics — “everybody focused on ideas.”

And yes, economics is another area Camara has dabbled in, completing a year of the Ph.D. program at Stanford University. But, he said, the lack of faculty focusing on law and economics, a strength at George Mason, caused him to decide not to return. He currently has no competing offers but said he’s considering leaving academe to practice law — or, as he said, to gain “some more distance in terms of time to lessen this problem.”

— Andy Guess

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Comments

Agents and Causes

I think the agent of his marginalization is the posting of his words — the cause is a professional fear of the high achieving. Faculties are like the proverbial bucket of crabs, and they are always fearul of those who might shine just a little too brightly. The young man’s offensive class notes are merely the pretext to do what most everyone wants to but dare not say out loud: punish the teacher’s pet simply for her or his innate abilities.

Idiocrat, at 6:56 am EDT on April 4, 2007

Buckets of Crabs

Ideocrat, you must be telepathic. The article notes that the faculty deliberations are confidential. The only group whose spokesperson was quoted was a student association. You have no evidence except prejudice for your assertion.

Joseph Duemer, Professor at Clarkson University, at 7:47 am EDT on April 4, 2007

Issue Camouflaged

The condemnation should be against the various real estate associations that enforced racial restrictive covenants.

This is another example of diversion of the focus off the issue: Was the law fair to minorities in regard to real estate purchases.

If law schools want to do the job, they will study the practice of no minorities could enter buildings to work or no one of any race could get a mortgage within the red line rather than the use of the word that whites commonly used to refer to persons now called Blacks. If one lives long enough, those who use the word “Blacks” may be condemned too.

The former student said he was sorry for any offense. Isn’t education to teach, certainly this student is now fully aware of political correctness. What happened to “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”.

The educators who took this young person’s name off the list do not deserve to be in higher education, much less in a law school. And, the students need to go to reverse sensitivity school.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.

Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.

wss@jefound.org

www://jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 8:25 am EDT on April 4, 2007

Well said, Squire Scott. Well said.

HJ, at 9:20 am EDT on April 4, 2007

cultural background

I know that Mr. Camara is a native Filopino and that he grew up in Hawaii but I do not know exactly how old he was when he moved to the U.S. Given his cultural background are we certain that he grasped the full gravity of using the word that he did, especially at 16 or 17 years of age?

thomassowellfan, at 9:25 am EDT on April 4, 2007

Disgraceful mediocrity

Kiwi Camara seems to be a talented, energetic and precocious intellectual who would make a superb law school teacher.

The absurd capitulation and excessive tenderness of the law school Dean at George Mason University and the predictable whining of a small cabal of ever-aggrieved students are overt and obvious warning signs to Mr. Camara.

Memo to Mr. Camara — forget about working amidst such lightweights and set your academic sights much higher. They will never appreciate you at George Mason, no matter what you do. Let those folks stew in their own juices.

Chuck, at 9:25 am EDT on April 4, 2007

More Advice to Camara

Unfortunately, your efforts alone will never overcome what happened because the record has become too public. Only an act of compassion by a high profile Black organization or person to forgive you will cleanse your record.

Absent that, you must either move out of range, London or Paris or earn a living that is beyond judgment, such as entertainer or author. Based on your track record, you are capable of doing whatever you want.

Quizzical, at 10:25 am EDT on April 4, 2007

You guys don’t get it: the debate was more about the fact that the issue happened only 5 years ago and was disclaimed, proving a knowledge that the conduct was offensive. The comment had nothing to do about the fact that real estate used to discriminate, that’s a fact and is not an issue. And no, black will not be a racial slur because its use is encouraged by African Americans.

Lastly, the student group didn’t have an opinion because judgment was reserved for post-meeting; the organization wanted to ensure of the legitimacy. No one was debating Camara’s academic qualification. Some were rightly concerned about a 23 year old’s ability to become an even-handed tenured professor without at least a month of instructional experience (racial comments aside). This article is fair, but the posters above have read their own facts into it.

Kim, at 10:55 am EDT on April 4, 2007

Poor, Unfortunate Soul

Most of us are fortunate enough not to be constantly punished for youthful indiscretions. Mr. Camara’s eagerness to put the issue behind him appears to have nothing to do with potential job offers and everything to do with the sincere effort of an honest man to leave a mistake behind him. If that’s the case, why shouldn’t society give him the chance to prove himself again, rather than judging him by a set of shorthand notes he made as a high-school aged student many years ago? If the student association that would be most offended by his comments was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, shouldn’t everyone? It’s a shame he didn’t have the chance to appear at the town hall meeting, it might have been enough to put this issue to rest for him.

Scott F, at 10:55 am EDT on April 4, 2007

Big Head and Small Hearts...

The attempt to reduce this incident to one of petty personal jealousy or envy of potential colleagues skirts important issues. Nor is the issue simply about the use of a racial epithet or “political correctness.” The primary concern here is about the manner in which racialized beliefs and values of professors impact the perception of students and potentially thwart their development and opportunities—-particular students who have been historically disenfranchised in academe.

Moreover, it must be noted that the Black Law Students Association chose to “reserve judgment” until they had an opportunity to hear the candidate’s presentation. Yet, this opportunity was not provided the students because, the truth be told, most university administrators and faculty lack the courage to contend forthrightly with moral questions tied to racism, let alone other forms of social exclusions and discrimination.

This is unfortunate for everyone involved. Kiwi Camara, the students and his potential colleagues need a public context in which to engage his actions, not just to hear a simple apology, but as an opportunity for a well thought out discussion of the consequences of his actions. Such a process could potentially lead to a more mature understanding of the manner in which racism continues to plague academia and the larger society today.

And lastly, choosing to simply distance himself from the action as a strategy for future re-entry into the academy is actually not a wise course for Camara. However, it is easy to forget that intellectual brilliance does not necessarily equate to emotional maturity. In academia, where big heads and small hearts are common place, this is often a blind spot for us all.

Antonia Darder, Professor at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, at 11:25 am EDT on April 4, 2007

Distaste for the Uninformed.

To address some of the comments left by prior posts...

First off, Prof. Duemer is indeed correct — the faculty deliberations are confidential.

Second, the case was about property law.

Third, Mr. Camara is only 22. How much can one expect in growth from him in less than a decade.

Fourth, he has apologized to a degree. If one were to do a Google search and find out the depths of his apology, it was an apology for posting the notes. The remedy he suggested was no longer posting the notes. Moreover, the question becomes, how much sympathy are we to have for someone that can’t execute a simple replace function on Microsoft Word and rather throws it in the face of the world.

Fifth, law students are not lightwieghts, nor are the faculty of GMUSL. In the interests of full disclosure, I am not black student but I am a student at GMUSL. Having disclosed as such, it becomes a bit repugnant to sit there and question — are there any other latent issues of discrimination that I have to subject myself to? It goes beyond the issue of skin color and projects itself into a larger dimension as to the individuals character. [NOTE: Have your discriminations if you wish, just don’t project them in a public forum unless you are ready to face the consequences. You can say whatever you want, just be prepared for what follows.]

He may be a brilliant individual but there is the concern that he is a liability to this institution. I do not desire this institution to become an experiment to test the potential greatness measured against any other mishap he may have.

Ron, at 11:25 am EDT on April 4, 2007

Oh Please!

Have we become such a state of “crybabies” that we are going to condemn a man for life for one misuse of a racial slur? It is being used to stop his rise within the ranks of academia, why? Because he himself is not lilly white, or is it because of his age? He’s perhaps too young for tenure, he hasn’t paid pennance enough for the use of the “N” word. How much is enough? Why don’t we just take him out and beat him in the streets, using such offensive language, shame, shame. It is time that someone become the voice of reason in this unreasonable society we have allowed the “politically correct” to force us to live in. When “words” alone, not actions, give us cause to condemn a young man then we have learned nothing from the past. I dare say that there are few, if any, young white men who have not used the “N” word at some point in their lives. Does this mean that they hate all African-Americans or have they simply been a victim of their own ignorance or upbringing? And what about African-Americans who use the word, or better yet, those young black men who use words that hurt whites? Do you think that their language will haunt them for years to come? I doubt it."Sticks and stones” people, not words are our LEGAL test of harm to individuals. The freedom to speak our minds and to have opinions should not and usually does not affect our professional judgement, at least not true professionals. Give the kid a break!

Martin, at 12:10 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

Was it the CHOICE of ’slur’ that did him him?

I have to wonder if, instead of ‘Nig’ he had used “White” or ‘Anglo’ or even Honky would this have been a career killer?Personally, I think skins, regardless of colour need to thicken....sticks and stones, folks.....

Mike, at 12:50 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

Ew

What no one mentions, or maybe notices, is that Camara is clearly a shill for the Right. Fellowships from Olin don’t just fall from the trees, and it is clear that the fact he is also racialized helps the cause along. This is not someone who is suffering for his opinion, but rather the type, like Dinesh D’Souza, who is profiting from the careful cultivation of an image. Wake up and smell the mediocrity!

Aside from these question of political affiliations and support, I am not sure what the value of having/hiring the latest “hot” autodidactic idiot savant is: 22 is an emotive age as well as one measured by early (and apparently extraordinary) competence. For however much Camara may have excelled at book learnin’, he is still emotionally and socially immature, and probably not suited to the rigor and subtlety required of the classroom and teaching, IMHO.

Oso R., Assistant Professor at Cold City U., at 12:50 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

maturity and words

Oso R, I tend to agree with you that he is a bit of a shill, and he has managed to play the situation to his own advantage. Where I disagree with you, however, is in the level of maturity required to teach. This man, for better or worse, already completed law school, passed the bar (I think), and clerked for a federal judge. So, on paper he does have the “qualifications” to be a professor. But, you erect another bar – maturity. Unfortunately, there is no real, objective way, to gage maturity. Usually “maturity” means “acting like myself.” Also, it is frequently used as a way to screen out political views that we don’t like – just call their proponents immature, and you can deny them a seat at any table.

While I am really not that impressed with him, there is no objective indication that he couldn’t be a law professor. Let’s face it, law professors today will frequently troll non-lawyers (with tales of “policy-making judges” and “frivolous” law suits) or troll students with rants about male hegemony or racist judges. Oh, and law professors sometimes use their positions to have sex with students. So, I really don’t think that my version of “maturity” could be used to screen professors.

Larry, at 2:30 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

I am the only African American student to start in 2005 and who will (hopefully) graduate in 2008 at GMU School of Law. I am also a member of the Black Law Student Association and was at the meeting where we formulated our wait and see response to the Kiwi situation. I have to say to many of the other posters that they have, as others have pointed out, read their own facts into this issue to help make their ill informed points. Not only that, but I feel it is important to know more about GMU before any criticism can be handed down about this situation. As you might have guessed from my opening sentence, GMUSL is very lacking in minority students. Given that fact the major concern of the people I spoke with who were opposed to the hiring of Kiwi, were the effects it would have on minority requirement. When you are dealing with a school that is well known for its conservative leanings and lack of minorities it can be hard to get minorities to go there. I’m proud to say that the school has made efforts to try to increase the minority population at the school, but it is still an up hill battle. The hiring of Kiwi in my opinion would have done nothing to help this problem and everything to exacerbate it. For one thing many of the students in the minority population who have made efforts to help the school recruit minorities, myself included, felt this to be a huge step back and something that would undermine all our efforts to recruit more minorities. I do not feel that Kiwi should have this “youthful indiscretion (code for too young to know to keep this kind of talk private)” follow him around for life. Academia is a place where any view should be freely expressed and discussed. However, there are larger concerns here for GMU and its efforts to increase its minority population. I truly felt the situation to have been either hire Kiwi or have black students. And even if that is an exaggeration, if even one black student were to not come to GMU cause of Kiwi’s hiring than that would be too great of a cost to give him a second chance for GMU. Because whatever papers he might write and media attention he might bring to the school, the value of having different views and life experiences represented in the school population is, in reality, more valuable to the education of the students than academic papers. I’m pained to see schools that are not dealing with the minority recruitment issue turn down Kiwi as I don’t feel this is helpful to racial relations in this country as it only serves to make people more fearful to talk about this issue. I’ll be the first to say that were it not for his comments and consequences I fear they would have for my school I would be excited to have the “Doogie Houser of Law” at our school. But the fact is that a school that has one Africa American student in a graduating class cannot afford the stigma that will be read into the hiring of a teacher with a raciest past.

I also encourage you to read the interview he gave in Harvard’s newspaper, the Record, his racial issue, from my reading of it, go way deeper than just this one time incident.

Brian Williams, Ill informed at GMULS, at 2:30 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

We still don’t get it

The issue is not merely the word he used, but what that word represents, and his comfort with what it represents. Obviously he was aware, to some degree, of the forces behind the word, because he posted a warning that his language was offensive.

He never apologized for his biases, only for making them public.

A good solution for Kiwi would be to donate his considerable talents to the NAACP or similar groups. It might also help him to develop in ways that he seems to have missed. Unfortunately, when people are brilliant in one area, they often are incapable of appreciating their weaknesses in another area.

Kirk, at 4:00 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

Camouflage Extended

Law student Williams has extended the issue to include not only the bigoted practices of White control of the right of Blacks to have property but also the right to be admitted to law school.

If law schools wanted to do a good job they would talk about the quality of their recruitment practices rather than the past relatively harmless indiscretions of professorial candidates.

One Black student in the class of 2008 speaks volumes about the real issue – educators must get to substance. Stop the right v left, liberal v conservative nonsense and take each problem head on.

Had this candidate been allowed to fully participate in the process, substance would have had a chance. Now all we have is finger pointing at leftover stew.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.

Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.

wss@jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 4:05 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

From him at the time, not much of an apology

ApologyWhat no one, including Camara, is able to answer is why he knowingly used the word in the first place.

When asked why he uses the word, Camara replied, “I avoid the word strenuously in public conversation, I don’t think the general pejorative conception of the word captures my views on race. I think it’s quite far from my views on race. I don’t view myself as a racist. I can’t give you, I can’t give me a satisfactory answer to that question.”

What Camara said he does know is that he sometimes uses the word in his notes and he hoped that by positing a disclaimer he could avoid causing offense.

“I didn’t know what particular offensive terms I might have used,” he said. “And at the same time, my thought process was, ‘Look I’ve composed my notes. I don’t have a perfect knowledge of what’s in them, but I know that I, as a 1L, would find them useful. I know that occasionally offensive things slip into my private work, so why don’t I warn people that if you would be offended by such things, don’t look.’”

Looking back Camara said that he realizes that he should not have posted the outlines and agrees that they were properly removed. He also said that in the future he would make an effort not use similar words, even privately.

“I will make a much more conscious attempt than I have made not to do so. I can’t guarantee it. I certainly will not be sharing anything further on HLCentral,” he said.

Camera said that he knows what it’s like being a minority.

“I have some experience with discrimination.... I’m Filipino in the United States. The first school I attended was a Jewish school and I’m not Jewish,” Camera said. “I had some experiences of discrimination there. I had some experiences of discrimination living in Cleveland, because I was Asian.”

Camara added: “I wouldn’t compare those experiences to what other folks who are offended by this term might feel. I don’t think the experiences are comparable. I think they depend on the life experiences of the particular person who sees the term.”

Now Camara says that he wants to move on and start a dialogue with other students.

“I wish to clear the air and invite people to talk to me, to send me an email if they want to talk about these issues, come up and pull me aside in Langdell,” he said. “That is part of what the law school is about.”

Dan, at 5:11 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

Ironic, on the anniversary of a Martyrdom

Isn’t it ironic that we should even have to have this discussion on the 39th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? As he was far more forbearing than I, Dr. King would probably have more readily forgiven that “brilliant” & morally undeveloped simpleton’s idiotic racial slur. But he would be deeply saddened that this would still that this is still an issue that we must wrestle with this late in the day. What becomes of a dream deferred?

RBirt, Ironic????, at 6:15 pm EDT on April 4, 2007

What is Intelligence?

This brings to the question, what really is intelligence? Is having a photographic memory really the only part of th equation? Hitler must have had a high IQ for him to execute what he did. If society is sick and we get so called brilliant graduates who behave like animals to their fellows, may be we need other yardsticks. Anybody who despises other fellow human beings because of their race is not intelligent or civilized or cultivated. He may have the ability to regurgitate the facts, but a robot can do the same.We want universities to be places where a better social and economic order can be conceived, not where social oppressors are manufactured. Who were the teachers of this young idiot?

Tegi Obanda, at 12:45 pm EDT on April 5, 2007

Ha ha. Too bad for him. Old enough for law school, old enough to know better.

Let all of today’s teenagers learn from this. What you write and post on the internet for the world to see will follow you for the rest of your life.

theGreatBlue, at 7:00 am EDT on April 8, 2007

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