Literature professor’s name cleared for using N-word in graduate class discussion

A prestigious liberal arts college in New York has written a white literature professor to tell her she did nothing wrong by leading a classroom discussion about the use of the “N”-word in a retrospective of canonical African-American author James Baldwin’s oeuvre in the spring semester.

“After carefully considering the complaints and reviewing the evidence, we have determined that you did not violate the university’s policy on discrimination,” said Geycel Best, director of Labor Relations at the New School, in a letter dated Wednesday.

The letter followed a meeting between professor Laurie Sheck, a novelist and poet, and school officials over reports from students of discrimination during a conversation stemming from the assignment of “The Creative Process,” a 1962 essay in which Baldwin argues that Americans have “modified or suppressed and lied about all the darker forces in our history.”

Ms. Sheck led a classroom discussion on a 2016 documentary about Mr. Baldwin’s work, titled, “I Am Not Your Negro,” a play on Mr. Baldwin’s infamous retort on “The Dick Cavett Show,” “I am not your nigger.” Ms. Sheck asked what significance the elision of the slur in the documentary’s title meant for American discourse on race in the contemporary age.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education had filed an 11-page letter with the New School in July, calling on the school to honor the principles of liberal education and end its investigation of Ms. Sheck, who has been teaching at the school for two decades.