Emory University has got some pretty serious problems when it comes to free speech on racial issues. Last year, David Horowitz's campus visit made national news when he got into an argument with Candace Bacchus, then-president of the Emory Black Student Alliance, about his views on slave reparations (Horowitz subsequently lampooned her mercilessly on his webzine FrontPage). This year, when the Emory College Republicans sought funding to bring Horowitz to campus again, funding was denied because too many members of the student-run College Council felt that Horowitz's presence on campus would be racially divisive and injurious. The rationale for barring Horowitz was bolstered by the fresh memory of another national-newsmaking fracas last fall, in which Emory anthropology professor Carol Worthman was overheard by Tracey Roe, a black assistant professor of linguistics, describing biological anthropologists such as herself as the "niggers in the woodpile" of the discipline. Roe filed a complaint; Worthman was sanctioned under Emory's speech code; the entire anthropology department was sentenced to racial sensitivity training (which was later, under pressure, made optional); and Emory's speech code became the subject of debate among the faculty, some of whom supported it as a necessary constraint on hate speech, some of whom saw it as a violation of academic freedom, the principle of free inquiry, and the values expressed by the First Amendment. Emory's speech code currently hangs in the balance of a faculty vote that was supposed to take place in January, but was deferred to an unspecified future date. Meanwhile, the notion that offensive racial speech may constitute punishable discriminatory harassment remains enshrined in Emory's policies and in the imaginations of many students, faculty, and administrators.

So do the censorious and intolerant attitudes that the policy--in the name of promoting tolerance--encourages people to adopt. Readers will recall that when the College Council met to decide whether to fund a Horowitz visit, two Emory administrators made the rare move of attending the meeting themselves and delivering speeches discouraging Council members from approving funding for Horowitz. In an editorial published by the Emory Wheel, Ezra Greenberg, an Emory student and member of the College Republicans, described one of the administrators' arguments thus:

Assistant Dean of Campus Life Vera Rorie delivered a speech littered with euphemisms and doublespeak, all but urging the Council to vote against someone who would ìdivide us.î Rorieís statements exhibited classic, anti-free expression duplicity.

ìWe are all for free speech, but ...î and ìWe are all for academic freedom, but ...,î Rorie said.

She insisted, ìIf we were to take a vote, Iím sure everyone is this room would support free speech.î Yet supporting free speech in the abstract is meaningless.

The question is whether you will allow someone whom you detest to speak, or if you will boo and hiss, as anti-Horowitz students did last year but campus conservatives have declined to do time and again.

Race, according to Rorie, is a very delicate issue, which she is obviously mature enough to discuss, while campus conservatives are not. Writing in the Wheel a few weeks ago, she said that her white colleagues could not look at race in the same way she could, because ìthe very existence of white privilege and institutional racism frames our experiences differently.î

Here's some free speech: you, madam, are incompetent and a buffoon. The internet is making it more difficult for people like you to hide behind the walls of academia. I also would like to remind you that internet search engines record these articles instantly and forever for posterity to see.

Dear Ed & Ezra,
My office had offered to assist the College Republicans in planning an event that would bring a conservative speaker of your choice to campus. In light of the attached email and link it is clear that you are not interested in practing [sic] community. The information you provided to outsiders is the source of the enclosed personal attacts [sic] on me. I am rescinding the offer to meet.I will not participate in email name calling or personal assaults.
Dean Vera Dixon Rorie

As of this writing, Rorie has not responded, and the promised meeting has not been rescheduled.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

Is there a generally available email address at whichÝMs. Rorie could be contacted so that more of us can let her know that she is headed in the wrong direction?

I liken it to the advice that when you're already in a hole, you should stop digging. Her conduct in this matter is further excavation from the depths of the hole. In my (thankfully brief) experience with digging holes, one indication that one should stop is when water starts appearing at the bottom of the hole. ÝIf we had a way to pour more emails into her metaphorical hole, she might start to get the idea that she is going in the wrong direction.ÝÝ

UPDATE UPDATE: KC Johnson forwards his letter to Dean Rorie:

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 21:26:20 -0800 (PST)
From: KC Johnson
Subject: horowitz and college republicans
To: vrorie@emory.edu

Dean Rorie,

My name is KC Johnson; I am a professor of history at Brooklyn College.

I have been following the account of your efforts to block student funding for a return visit by David Horowitz to Emory. This evening, I read with some surprise your email to the student leaders of the College Republicans, terminating a meeting with them because your actions have generated public criticism.

It seems to me that any academic administrator would want to bend over backwards to accomodate free speech and intellectual diversity on his or her campus. It disappoints me to see that Emory, evidently, does not follow this approach.

I hope that, if you are not willing to reconsider, at least that you cease objecting when your views become more widely disseminated. It would be good for parents of future Emory students to know that at EmoryÝcertain types of speakers are off-limits for political reasons.

KC Johnson