Pear, Robert

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Leiter, Robert

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University of Rhode IslandDigitalCommons@URIHackney, Sheldon: Humanities ChairmanNomination Hearing (1993)Education: National Endowment for the Arts andHumanities, Subject Files I (1973-1996)1993Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities ChairmanNomination Hearing (1993): News Article 26Robert LeiterFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_29This News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Education: National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, Subject Files I(1973-1996) at DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993)by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@etal.uri.edu.Recommended CitationLeiter, Robert, "Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993): News Article 26" (1993). Hackney, Sheldon:Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993). Paper 65.http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_29/65http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_29/65APRIL 30, 1993 'Water buffalo' a racial slur? Penn and student disagree· By ROBERT LEITER Exponent Staff University of Pennsylvani.a fresh· man Eden Jacobowitz, who ha.a been accused of shoutln1 racial slurs at members of a black sorority, will have to wait until the fall to have hla 'cilse heard by a panel or university authorities and students. The judicial inquiry, which was to have taken place Monday, was "postponed Indefinitely" last Fri-day, said Dr. Allen Charles Kora, a Penn history professor who Is acting as legal adviser to the Orthodox Jewish student from Long Island. The reason given then was that the aorority women had no legal advis-ers. But on Wednesday, Jud.Ida! Ad-ministrator Dr. John Brobeck left a mcaaaae on Kon' answcrln1 machine at Penn saying the Inquiry bad been postponed until the fall because or all of the publicity the cue had engen-dered. Jacobowitz's entanglement with university authorities hepn close to midnight on Jan. 13. Accordln1 to the freshman, the second semester wu just aettina under way and he was working on an English paper. His roommate was asleep. Thi grou~t6t'bla'ck'•orbrity sisters' wu malclng noise outilde High Rise East, the dormitory where Jacobo-witz resides. Other dOrin residents were yellln1 for them tO quiet down, and Jacobowitz said some may have shouted radal epithets; But he said he only heard the noise and wanted it to stop. Racl~m was the furthest thing from his mind, he said. Wbat he remembers yellln1 was, "Shut· up, you water buffalo. If you're lookln1 for a party, there'• a zoo a mile" from here." Tiie sorority members, Incensed by the yelling, called the campus police. According to Jacobowitz·, when the police antV~ on hl1 ·noor and ulced who had been Involved In the Ind-dent, only he stepped forward. "Other people were never spot-ted," the freshman said. "They were hldlna becau.se they had aomethlng to hide. I relt I hadn't done anything to be afraid or. I thouaht I would tell then\ what had happened and not hear from them again."· -~ aakC!i bJ Penn police 1r. he knew the race or the women, Jacobo-wltz said yes, but It had no relevance to what he had shouted. Robin Read of the university's See PINN page 22 JEWISH EXPONENT PENN from page 6 Judicial Inquiry Office thought otherwise. She decided the water· buffalo reference wu racist and pressed on with the matter. Last month, she told Jacobowitz that no further action would be taken against him if he apologized to the women, led a sensitivity seminar on ·race In his dormitory and agreed to have the Incident become part of his transcript. · When he refused, Read told him he would have to attend the h'caring that was scheduled for Monday. Jacobowlu iald he has offered to speak to the women many .times and to apoloatze. "But I don't think they want it quick resolution to this case," he said. "I think they wanted to get someone on racial harusment." In the mldat of all this, Jacobowlu has been stru11lln1 to find time to study for his final exams, which began yesterday. 'the.cue has 1arnered considerable ~a at'tqntlon In _l'CCCl)t days, ln-cliidll}I an editorial in the April 26 ;'W,pU·.&tfll# JownaJ, The only, ofli-~. unlvenlty · announcement con-. ' ~_J-v· , . ( . ( • I ~ _. (~,.· ·/ ' J APRIL 30 1993 yeshiva training, he had i:>fObably translated the Hebrew . word beM-mah in his bead. The word can mean cernlng the charges has been a letter water buffalo or ox, Kon said, but It by Penn President Sheldon Hackney can also mean a person involved in to the Journal in responJC to the thoughtless behavior. The . phrase piece. might have been commonly uted· at Hackney writes that federal law Jacobowitz's yeshi•a; the adviser and university policy do not permit noted. him to discuss the facts of the case. According to·Kors, there 'was Do He comes down on the side of due proceu in -the case; .. , ., ' freedom of expression, but makes It "I know this for a faet, "· lie 'said. clear In the last paragraph of his •JI met with Robin Read·arid ~ letter that the university judicial her IC her mind was ltlft open· 01i"tliis process directed at Jacobowitz will and If she would conskicf ~continue. the cue If me WU praented"~ih "Those who think they know '..what new evidence. I told her about ~ah the outcome should be," Hatjtney Anclenon - theH's · no one Who writes In conclusion, "arc lmp&tient knows more on ·the ltibjcct .;;.i:,and with the procesa, but that prO<:CSs that. tn all of bis experience.· -~·bu must be allowed to run Its counc." n~ heard of the Phraat·Uted}:s ~ Kora, Jacobowitz'• adV!ser, said It racial ilttr. I gave her mt~le CMe; wu "unc:Oiudonable" that the But the Judicial lnqulrtOffke licvCt hearing wu postponed, and that contacted Andenoti itiJL-.•t ~" · Hackney speaks In his letter of All c:alla"·to the;J\ldl~~ulry ''patience." Office were refcrnd to'the ~ty "Eden, the one person ·who public relations omoe. ·The'~ cooperated with the Penn p0lice, bas wu told that ~mdty poller doca been waltln1 since January," Kors not permit Read fo comment on the said. "He's become thclr only llCllpc· Jacobowitz matter. 1oat. This cue Is so absurd .. It's out The cue Is further COl!ll>licated by of Orwell and Kafka. the fact that PC1111 President Hackney "I wu told the cue had to be 11 Predc1ent,~ou·J~lcel0 !(Cad heaf4 Monday or never," the prof ca- the N~ E~ait (<?r ~the sor said, "IJld I, and many othen, ,., _H.~tlff.. H~eyu perc:ii:lved 11 rearranied our schedules coaiplCtcly. .~jiloo;..pf rrc«:_ ·~;~ I agreed to Monday because It rneent ancr be'~ ~J~#~ Eden w0uld have to 10 alone other- Map~1• co~ftts1al. ~to. wise." graphs ~rnre exhlb~ on Kors said he had gathered 10 f!&IDJ>Ul•.i ., , · · i faculty and staff memben and 10 Co~t..I!,~~ tiµl!, )lid students who were ready to testify on H ... ~::_4._ • , • :::~w~:~t!sha~;re ~r~0~j~ ~;. 81 la ~ at' ~. Anderson, a black ethnographer and uni~ "?,·· ~. sociologist at Penn, and Dan Beu· J ··9'14ltead told · Amos, an Israeli also at Penn, whose wu aURSllY.& Piinul.n1 thlf-'' · · . area of expertise is African folklore. ailar. c:Ue because Hae""'"". "f;tllf Anderson told Kors he would made. It·~· tbit'.:JIC . · · · testify that "water buffalo" hu-.. ~ ·~ .. f~ liad,:· never been used u a radii slur. AJld ~ . · Kon said It wu Ben-Amos wbo · :~. realized that, because of Jacobo- tf wl11'1 r~ll1lo111 hackuound and ....,~i..,_~~~ ,: '---..... J. ., .. ~~ APRIL 30, 1993 . PENN from preceding page to save face. "They will have escaped the glare of publicity and postponed their embarrassment," he said. "By the fall, Hackney will probably have been confirmed by the Senate as the new head of the National Endow-ment for the Humanities. "But they have been aucifying this kid since: January," he said, "and now they want this to hang over his life all summer." As- to the question of whether Jacobowitz is being persecuted be-cause he is a Jew, Kors said there wasn't a Jewish clement in the initial charges. "But here's what I've found," the professor said. "Penn likes to think of itself as a multicultural university. " But after I gave them the scholarly ~ references from Anderson and the Jewish tradition that would show ~ Eden's innocence, for a university to continue the case aod call itsdf multicultura.I is a ~. What the ~ university ·is _saying is that this is a multicultural commuiiity, but that there's no room for ~people-. ·~ Evangelical '¢bdstiao&; . Catholi<:S . and~J~:~ . . ~· an campus disagree with • •• L Jcrcm Brochin · ·: · .~ ··u~ B'iith ilnei Foun: dation at :Penn, dCllics tlic issue is a bladc~Jewish one. .. I~ ·has to do more with racial ~codes OD campus.'' ~ro­chii>.'a°i4 . ""lt'i c;kaf that the univer- . .··:~'.·,, ~.:tl!!.: L-. . . --•iA U -· I b. 1 .... _ .• Lonnie ~re Beer, ~te dircc~~ tor, Eastern Pcnnsylvama-Dclaware -Region of the Anti-Defamation I League, who ·#l'Otc to Read on J8cobowitz~s ~. also s,aid that wbatAm ~· to the -Penn rrcihman ••dQcsn 't seem to have bccli<donc ddibcoltcly because he's 1eWi!h: '' Rather~ she wrote in her letter the charges against Jacobowitz "att' -questionable and possioly groUndlcss." But the manner in which this case has been handled drew fire fiom physics professor Michael Cohen, who said the official policy of the university is to draw .. a curtain of secrecy over its internal judicial proceedings. Without this curtain .or secrecy, the university commuruty would not tolerate the unjust aspects of these procccdings. I "The university rdcascs infonna- \ tion in a very selective way," be said. "It deals in news management, and anyone who talks to you about this is probably breaking some university or code." Cohen has taught at Penn for 35 years and said things have never been worse concerning free spcccb. "lbc racial harassment policy on campus is a gcncral form of intimida-tiou:·· be said. "The students who suffer are tliose who don't subscribe to the university's idea of political correctness. {The Jacobowitz case} would seem to be an example of normal hostile reactions on the part of immature students. Now it's been blown out of proportion. ••} was around during the McCar-thy era and this is much worse," be said. ••There's been notbiDi like [____this... • 1 I J 

Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993): News Article 26

University of Rhode IslandDigitalCommons@URIHackney, Sheldon: Humanities ChairmanNomination Hearing (1993)Education: National Endowment for the Arts andHumanities, Subject Files I (1973-1996)1993Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities ChairmanNomination Hearing (1993): News Article 73Robert PearFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_29This News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Education: National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, Subject Files I(1973-1996) at DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993)by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@etal.uri.edu.Recommended CitationPear, Robert, "Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993): News Article 73" (1993). Hackney, Sheldon:Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993). Paper 71.http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_29/71http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_29/71THE NEW YORK TIMES May 18, 19.~3 COMMENCEMENTS ~~llary Clinton Gives Plea for Unity at Penn . ..,,.. r.;;i,,... By ROBERT PEAR 6~~~~ Special to 1be New York Times 'PHH.ADELPHIA, May 17 - Ac-cepting an honora'ry .degree from the Uni'fersity of Pennsylvania, which has:experienced racial tension in the ltel!' 1year, Hillary Rodham Clinton u~ students today to "repair the social contract" and uphold the idea of..oolleges as "havens for free speech am!';1ree thought." . "What we have to do here at this university and in this country is to fil\oe. way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities," she sdici. .. . ..P.enn, like other Ivy League I schools, h~s been roiled by disagree-ments between black and white stu- ' dents. Efforts by the university presi-dent, F. Sheldon Hackney, to fashion a compromise have left many people dissatisfied. President Clinton has named Dr. Hackney to be chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and his wife, Lucy D. Hackney, has worked closely with Mrs. Clinton as an advocate for chil-dren. In her commencement address to-day, Mrs. Clinton suggested that a firm ·commitment to free speech must be combined with respect for the racial and ethnic differences that have caused conflict on college cam-puses and in American society at large. · 'F~ Exchange of Ideas' While voicing distress at "ha~eful acts, hateful words,'! Mrs .. Clinton warned her audience to avoid censor-ship. "For all the injustices in our paSt and our present," she said, "we have to· believe that in the free ex-change .of ideas, justice will prevail over injustice, tolerance over intoler-ance and progress over reaction." A total of 6,711 degrees, i11cluding 3,053 bachelor's degrees, were ·con-ferred on the Class of 1993 in ceremo-nies at Franklin Field. Mrs. Clinton tOld graduating stu-dents that they .could find meaning in their lives by selfless efforts to help others, through programs of national ·service like the one proposed by Pres-ident Clinton. "How do we strike the right bal-ance between individual~rightS and responsibility?" Mrs. Clinton asked. "How do we create a new spirit of community given all the problems that we are so aware of? Regrettably, the balance between the individual and the community, between rights and responsibilities, has been thrown out of kilter over the last years. "Throughout the 1980's, we did hear too much about individual gain and the ethos of selfishness and greed. We did not hear enough about how to be a good member of a com-munity, to define the common good and to repair the social contract-And we also found that while prosperity does not trickle dawn from the most powerful to the rest of us, all too often indifference and even intolerance do." The strain in race relations at the University of Pennsylvania was illus-1 trated by a January incident in which a white student referred to several black women who were making loud ooises outside his.dormitory window as "water buffaloes." On Friday, a judicial board of the university held a preliminary hearing to determine whether the white student had violat-ed Penn's ban on racial harassment. Civil libertarians say the universi-ty has no bus~ess regulating speech. Some white students complain that . blacks often segregate themselves on campus. Some black students say they have been insulted by whites, treated harshly by the university po-lice and made to feel unwelcome on campus. In a separate incident last month, blacks confiscated thousands of cop-ies of The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, to emphasize their objections to a conservative col-umnist whom they saw as racially biased. After noting that the oat.ion's first medical school was established here at the University of Pennsylvania in 1765, Mrs. Clinton described the radi-cal changes she . envision¢ in the American health-care system. "If you change jobs or if you lose your job," she said, "you will still be insured. If you are an older American and need help with prescription drugs and a start on long•term care, partic· ularly in your home, you will be in-sured. If you are a physician or a .nurse or a pharmadst or a dentist, you will no longer spend 20 to 40 percent of your time and income fill-ing out countless meaningless forms." The others who received honorary degrees at Penn today are Jeanne Quint Benoliel, a retired professor of nursing at the University of Washing-ton, in Seattle; Miriam Ben-Porat, State Comptroller of Israel; Dr. Al-fred Gellhom, a former dean of the School of Medicine at Penn; Ralph - Landau, a chemical engineer, and William Julius Wilson, an expert on urban poverty. 

Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993): News Article 73

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Hackney, Sheldon: Humanities Chairman Nomination Hearing (1993): News Article 73

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