I am currently reading a book you probably have heard of, "Freakonomics" by the economist Steven D. Levitt. The book is extremely popular, a worldwide best seller frequently included in college curriculums.
On Page 94 of "Freakonomics" is a quote that contains the notorious racial slur that is usually referred to as the "N-word." The context for the quote is not really what's important here (it happened to be uttered by a black man). Rather, reading that passage made me reflect on the firing last week of an adjunct professor at Towson University.
Allen Zaruba, a popular art teacher described as a mentor to many successful local artists, apparently used the word in the context of describing the university as a "corporate plantation." Although one of his students did complain to the university, apparently there was no larger outcry against Mr. Zaruba. Nor has anyone suggested any malicious intent on his part. He apologized profusely for using the word, explaining that he had often heard it used by his black stepfather.
The most intriguing part of this story is the reaction of university officials. According to Mr. Zaruba, Stuart Stein, the acting chairman of his department, told him that the offending word was "never, never, never to be used anywhere on campus."
Ponder that statement for a moment, and you'll quickly realize that it is not true -- indeed, it cannot possibly be true. The "N-word" is a linguistic and cultural phenomenon; Towson University could not possibly be scrubbed clean of it. It has been the subject of articles, essays, dissertations, even entire books, some of which are surely present within Towson U.'s hallowed halls. It is found not only within the pages of "Freakonomics" but in a number of works by Mark Twain, notably his masterpiece, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." A novel by the great British writer Joseph Conrad even has the word in its title. It occurs in countless movies and TV shows. Someone, somewhere at Towson University is probably, at this very moment, consuming some form of entertainment or literature that includes this supposedly "forbidden" word.
Moreover, as we all know, people do use the "N-word" in conversation -- sometimes as an expression of racial hatred against black people, but perhaps more often as an affectionate term among African-Americans. (Of course, there are plenty of black people who abhor any use of the word, even by blacks, but that attitude is far from universal.)
If Mr. Stein actually said what Mr. Zaruba quoted him as saying (and I have heard no suggestion that the quote was inaccurate), then we appear to be dealing with a textbook case of zero tolerance. And as we know all too well by now, zero-tolerance policies tend to have ridiculous results, like a 6-year-old kindergartner being expelled from school for having a plastic knife in his lunch box.
Such policies fail because they are unable to account for either motivation or context. A 6-year-old with a butter knife is not a violent threat; and Mr. Zaruba's use of the word in that context is no evidence that he is a malicious racist. That he should lose his job (and that his students should lose the benefit of his talents) over what he acknowledged was a stupid mistake seems utterly senseless.
And that Towson University could think of no appropriate or creative solution in this circumstance, short of depriving Mr. Zaruba of his livelihood, is unconscionable.