LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Legal Community Is Split Over Emory Law Prof’s Use Of ‘N-Bomb.’

Two law professors and a former law school dean have offered their public support to an Emory law professor suspended over the use of a racial slur.

Affidavits from Harvard University’s Randall Kennedy, Princeton’s Keith Whittington, and Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte, the former president of Florida State University where he also served as the law school’s dean, were included in formal complaints calling for Emory’s censure. Retired Emory law professor William Carney asked the American Bar Association and the American Association of University Professors to censure Emory for placing law professor Paul Zwier on indefinite administrative leave and banning him from campus.

Carney, who with his wife donated $1 million to the law school in 2015, also called for Emory to be placed on academic probation for what he said were violations of Zwier’s academic freedom. Zwier twice used a slur in contexts he has contended were neither gratuitous nor employed to demean an individual or group.

But three prominent Emory law school alumni maintain that Zwier’s utterance of a racial epithet remains inexcusable despite his explanations for what prompted him to use the word.

Sigh.