LETTERS: Comments from the 'shadow'

To the Editor: Professor Kors now writes that he interviewed "scores" of people for his book, but he apparently could not find the black women plaintiffs -- nor could he find me! Even the intrepid DP reporter could not track down the elusive women, though he did find me. So readers are left with the Kors/WSJ version of events. Accurately paraphrased by the DP reporter, that version is that the white students "speaking" from the windows of High Rise East to the black women students below were "asking them to quiet down." Anyone who believes that the white students used no term stronger or more insulting than "water buffalo" should really not be playing outdoors without adult supervision. Most distressing, by doctoring the facts to trivialize the incident in a way that appealed to Rush Limbaugh and his audience, Professor Kors avoids having to deal with the central issue posed by the case: how can we protect free speech on campus and at the same time protect students from racial harassment? I long ago stated in public -- for instance, at my confirmation hearing in the summer of 1993 -- that even the very narrowly drawn racial harassment policy that Penn had in 1993 will not work very well, as the events at Penn amply demonstrate. It is ludicrously inadequate, however, to offer as a solution the bumper sticker slogan to the effect that the antidote for bad speech is good speech. Much of the parts of the book about Penn are given over to personal attacks on me and a tortured reading of my record; those probably will not interest the University community as much as they interest me. It should be of general interest, however, that under the Student Judicial Charter in effect in 1993, there was no role for the president or the provost. I believed then, and I believe now, that it was not "constitutional" for me to have intervened in the case as it was awaiting adjudication by the appropriate faculty-student panel. The case came to an end when the women student complainants withdrew their charges. Had I intervened before then, there would have been a major crisis with unpredictable consequences. That probably would have helped me in the confirmation process in Washington, but it would have been terrible for the University. Professor Kors is normally more than punctilious about our "shared governance" arrangements, and the rights of faculty and students under University policies. I am surprised that he would have granted the president extraordinary powers of unilateral action in this case. Sheldon Hackney History Professor