Just consider ONE of the unusual cases that we will have to deal
with under this code. It's not at all uncommon for one black student
to call another "nigger." I know that this is not what
the people drafting the code had in mind. And I know that the
intra-racial context is different from the inter-racial context
in very important ways. But I also know that some of the black
students do not like this sort of language. It may be as personally
offensive and harmful to the educational situation as the inter-racial
name calling that we hear more about.
My point is that once you start to police this sort of thing you
have to go all the way or you become arbitrary. Do we really want
to start trying to figure out when the word "nigger"
is seriously harming the educational atmosphere and when it isn't?
Reference: For some interesting comments on intra-racial
name calling, see Donald Lively's article "Racial Myopia
in the Age of Digital Compression," in Speaking of Race,
Speaking of Sex, p. 74-75
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