Law Schools

White Professor Who Wore Blackface Teaching About Race Because There Are No Consequences For Anything Anymore

Is there any transgression serious enough to get someone fired anymore?

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In 2016, an Oregon Law School professor, Nancy Shurtz, surveyed the wide panoply of Halloween costume ideas and decided her best bet was to go in blackface. Shurtz, apparently, enjoyed a book titled “Black Man In A White Coat” (affiliate link), an account of racism in the medical profession and, without noting any possible irony, decided the appropriate way to honor this work would be to caricature the author with Amos & Andy-level precision. It’s hard to claim that this was an innocent homage to the author and not an effort to play with stereotypes when she topped the costume with an afro wig.

It was a transgression so bold that one wondered if she was engaged in a George Costanza drive to walk away from Oregon Law with people saying, “Wow, now that woman got canned.”

In the immediate aftermath of the event, 23 of her faculty colleagues called upon her to resign, noting that, however innocent she envisioned her intent, such a reckless breach of basic decency and community respect required her stepping down.

She didn’t. Now she’s teaching a class about race because we really do live in a consequence-free society. The Oregon Law community is less than pleased.

Nancy Shurtz is returning to Oregon Law. Oregon hired outside counsel who concluded she did violate school policy, but they opted to not fire her. The law school did not inform the students of her return, and we only learned because her name was back on the schedule. Furthermore, she is teaching Women and the Law, a passive way for the university to say female students of color don’t matter.

Oh, I don’t know if it’s all that “passive.” It seems like a pretty active statement to me.

Frankly, it’s impressive that the school determined that Professor Shurtz violated school policy. Throughout this ordeal, the fact that she wore her costume only at an off-campus, unsanctioned party seemed like a slam dunk for avoiding official repercussions. But she did invite students to the party and that crosses the line into racial harassment.

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But that finding — which gave the school all the cover in the world to take action — wasn’t enough apparently. So now she’s back teaching about intersectionality:

Women and the Law description:
This seminar examines the effects of law on women and women on the law from historical, doctrinal, and theoretical perspectives. It explores feminist method; the difference dilemma; the omission of women’s voices with a focus on intersectionality with race, class and sexual orientation; equality analysis; pregnancy and the workplace; fetal rights; rape; and battered women who kill and are killed.

I thought a bit about Professor Shurtz’s story over the weekend after reading Kevin Williamson’s laughably bad Wall Street Journal piece, “When the Twitter Mob Came For Me.” Williamson, the professional troll fired from the Atlantic when people pointed out that he has a soft spot for promoting violence against women, carried on at length about how journalism has failed because reporters had the audacity to hold a professional writer to the words he wrote. The nerve!

Williamson and Shurtz likely have very little in common, but Williamson’s ode to white male fragility highlighted the one thing ever-present in these stories: there’s always an excuse. It’s always a joke, it’s always “not what it looks like,” it’s always “not a big deal if I can just explain myself.” Sometimes there actually are innocent explanations, but there’s a big difference between “yeah, but” and “no, because.” There’s just no end to the deferral of that responsibility.

And no wonder, when there are institutions like Oregon Law more than willing to enable this cycle.

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Earlier: It’s After Halloween, So OF COURSE We Have To Talk About Law Professors Wearing Blackface

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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