Use of N-Word at Age 16 Costs Harvard Grad a Teaching Job

WASHINGTON — On Kiwi Camara’s biographical Web site, the 22-year-old legal phenom lists several accolades — his prestigious law fellowship, a coveted federal appeals court clerkship, and, not to be forgotten, his graduation magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.Perhaps emboldened by his accomplishments, Mr. Camara instructs readers to do something that, even for average people, could be considered career suicide.“Google me!” the Web site says.The results show something from Mr. Camara’s past that has followed him throughout his brief career and that last week may have cost him a teaching job at George Mason University School of Law.Mr. Camara, a native Filipino who grew up in Hawaii and enrolled at Harvard Law School at age 16, had been on track to become an assistant professor at the law school. But his candidacy was derailed after the law school’s dean, Daniel Polsby, publicized the possible appointment so he could hear what students had to say before making a final decision.During Mr. Camara’s first year at Harvard Law School in 2002, he fueled a controversy when he wrote racist remarks in a voluminous summary of a 1948 Supreme Court decision that barred restrictive covenants based on race. He then posted the writing on a Web site designed to help other law students.In the five years since he wrote the racist phrase, it has surfaced from campus to campus, job interview to job interview — a predicament that raises a broader question perfectly fit for these Google times: What’s the appropriate standard for judging a teenager years later?The questions emerged with renewed intensity for Mr. Camara, he said in an interview, and for George Mason law students, who said Mr. Camara’s possible hiring triggered fresh debate on campus about race and the school’s politically conservative image.Mr. Camara, who is teaching a course at the Northwestern University School of Law in Illinois on a fellowship awarded by the Washington-based Federalist Society, declined to say why he is no longer a candidate for a teaching position at George Mason. He said he did not mean to use the racist language as a law student and that it was an isolated instance.“There was no premeditation. It wasn’t a decision, and that obviously sounds not plausible because that’s what anyone in my position would say. But there’s nothing I can really do to counteract the implausibility,” Mr. Camara said.At George Mason’s law school, the faculty had authorized Mr. Polsby to hire Mr. Camara as an assistant professor, but the dean wanted to first see what students, alumni, and others thought. He scheduled a town hall meeting for Monday night, but the meeting was nixed after Mr. Camara’s application was withdrawn.Students were grateful that Mr. Polsby plugged them into a sensitive personnel matter, but at the same time, they remained ambivalent. “Having top-notch faculty and faculty that respect other people’s differences aren’t mutually exclusive,” said Rex Flynn, 31, a third-year student who is president of the school’s Black Law Students Association. “We shouldn’t have to be put in the position where we have to defend the N-word by our professor.”

Use of N-Word at Age 16 Costs Harvard Grad a Teaching Job

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