students storm out of class after white princeton professor repeatedly uses n-word

A Princeton professor is under fire after several students accused him of repeatedly using “nigger” in an attempt to make a point about hate speech. Lawrence Rosen, who is white, teaches a course called “Cultural Freedoms: Hate Speech, Blasphemy and Pornography”.

According The Daily Princetonian, Rosen’s class was having a discussion the types of speech should be protected. Destiny Salter, a Black student in the course, told the Huffington Post that about 10 minutes into the class, Rosen asked: “Which is more provocative: A white man walks up to a black man and punches him in the nose, or a white man walks up to a black man and calls him a n****r?” Yes, “ER.”

Salter said Rosen repeated the question multiple times, even after students expressed discomfort. Probably determining the limits of the racial abuse they were willing to subject themselves to for the sake of vague philosophical questions, another student asked if Rosen planned to continue repeating the word in future classes, to which the professor replied that he would if he deemed it necessary.

Salter said Rosen explained he “wanted everyone to feel the power of that word.” “As if black people haven’t been feeling the full power of the N-word for the past 400 years,” she said. She and another student then decided to walk out of the class, not because she wasn’t willing to debate the word, Salter said, but because Rosen didn’t give any particular space for Black students who were particularly affected, and because he seemed to take glee in seeing them upset.

In a statement, Princeton’s acting university spokesman Michael Hotchkiss said that the incident was “part of the vigorous engagement and robust debate that are central to what we do,” and the university is in the process of setting up a meeting with the students.

In a letter published in the school newspaper, the chair of Princeton’s anthropology department, Carolyn Rouse, defended Rosen, accusing students of having no reason to protest the word other than “because it made me feel bad.” Rouse said Rosen also used anti-American and anti-Semitic examples, implying that Black students were especially fragile, as if Rosen being an American Jew does not shift the power dynamics in those other contexts.

“Rosen was fighting battles for women, Native Americans, and African-Americans before these students were born,” Rouse explained, her version of “HE’S ALWAYS BEEN GOOD TO YOU PEOPLE! HE’S ALWAYS GONE OUT OF HIS WAY FOR COLOREDS!”

After her experiences, Salter says she has decided to drop the class.

“I did not come to this school to hear my professor spout the N-word in class. Period.”