On September 15, Emory University's anthropology department held a panel discussion to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Afterward, Emory anthropology professor Carol Worthman was overheard describing how marginalized sociobiologists like herself are within a discipline that is reluctant to consider the possibility that there are biological explanations for human differences between sexes and across races. Emory's biological anthropologists are regarded by cultural anthropologists outside of Emory as "six n-----s in the woodpile," Worthman said. Her comment was heard by Tracy Rone, an assistant professor of anthropology at Emory who also happened to be the only black person at the panel. Rone filed a complaint with Emory's Equal Opportunity Programs office, which concluded that the event was an isolated one and was not indicative of a hostile environment (Rone disagrees, and wrote in an October 24 memo, penned with another black anthropology professor, that the Emory anthropology department is a place where "institutionalized .Ý.Ý. racism ... ranges from marginalization to intimidation"). The office nonetheless recommended that Worthman apologize verbally and in writing to Rone; that the anthropology department chair--who did not hear the remark--also apologize verbally and in writing to Rone; that he address his department, verbally and in writing, reiterating Emory's Policy Statement on Discriminatory Harassment; and that Worthman be punished with a to-be-determined sanction ranging somewhere from written reprimand to suspension.

If you are wondering how the office would have responded if it had considered Worthman's comment to be indicative of a hostile environment, you have only to consider the recommendations of Johnnetta Cole, former Emory professor and current president of Bennett College. Cole wrote the Emory anthropology chair (who had gone on record as saying, in response to the EOP recommendation, "Action will be taken"). An experienced administrator, Cole believes that a remark like Worthman's can and should be leveraged. That is what she did with her letter, which urged the anthropology department's apologetic chair to come up with a plan "for substantially increasing the number of graduate students and faculty of color." The assumptions behind her missive were these: that Worthman's comment indicates pervasive racism in the department; that pervasive racism of the sort indicated by the comment is the result of the department's lack of racial diversity; that increasing the number of non-white members of the department will either reduce that racism (implicitly, by reducing the numbers of racist whites, by sensitizing the remaining whites, and by policing, through sheer force of presence, those whites who remain insensitive); that moments like this are ideal for shaming academic institutions into making a hefty public commitment to the project of academic social engineering commonly known as "diversity." Cole's call was echoed by Emory's associate undergraduate dean, who pronounced the climate at Emory "not good" and who wants to see mandatory diversity training for everyone on campus.

Recommendations like these have taken root in recent days, and while the University continues to declare that this was an isolated incident, it has mandated the apologies recommended by EOP and has also mandated diversity training for the entire anthropology department. You can read Emory's statement here. Worthman has acknowledged making the comment, and has said in a public statement, "I am distressed that I offended unintentionally."

I do not condone Worthman's comment. It is almost incomprehensible to me that someone would use such a phrase, in this day and age, in any descriptive capacity. At the same time, I am at least as disturbed by Rone's method of responding to Worthman's comment and by Emory's response to Rone's complaint. What would have been wrong with Rone simply speaking up in the moment, and saying, "Excuse me, Professor Worthman, but I object to your language"? Or, if momentary shock kept Rone from speaking up, why couldn't she have taken the matter up privately with Worthman, either in person or over email, later? Or, if Rone, as a newly hired assistant professor, did not feel she could speak so bluntly to a senior colleague, why couldn't she have approached her chairman about the matter, and asked him to mediate? Why was a formal complaint of discriminatory harassment the first line of action here? A great deal of energy has been spent thinking about what Worthman's comment says about her, and about what her comfort in making the comment says about the atmosphere in which she works. But it would also be worth thinking about what Rone's complaint says about her and about Emory, about what it means that she was so ready to bring charges against a colleague--someone who is not a stranger, someone she works with, someone she knows--for making an offensive comment, and about what it means that Emory was so willing to respond to that complaint not only by punishing a professor for her speech, but by declaring an entire department to be racist by proxy. It strikes me that Emory may be creating hostile racial stand-offs in the moment of trying to avoid and prevent them.

Emory is a private institution and so is not obligated to uphold the First Amendment. And Emory does have a speech code that forbids "objectionable epithets" and "demeaning depictions." But the university states, in the same policy, that "The scholarly, educational, or artistic content of any written, oral, or other presentation or inquiry shall not be limited by this Policy.Ý It is the intent of this paragraph that academic freedom be allowed to all members of the academic community." Worthman used the epithet in a self-referential way, as part of an attempt to characterize her own minority, marginal status within her profession. More to the point, by describing herself as the anthropological equivalent of a "n----r in a woodpile," she is criticizing the very concept of marginalization, and expressing her disgust not with black people, but with the logic of categorical demonization and exclusion that creates, among other things, racism. Her remark was not, in this respect, gratuitous or non-germane. It also was, quite arguably, not racist. As such, it sits in the impossible no man's land created by campus speech codes, that zone where one person's reasoned--if tasteless--remark comes into conflict with another person's emotional reaction. Emory has decided that emotional reaction trumps reasoned remark. In so doing, the university believes it is fostering tolerance. In reality, it is betraying the principle of the university itself.