Law Schools

N-Word-Using Law School Professor Gets To Keep His Job

Resolution isn't always satisfactory.

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Paul Zwier

It may have taken a year and a half, but there is finally resolution in the case of Emory Law professor Paul Zwier. You may recall Zwier as the prof who used the n-word in class. Since, disturbingly, there is more than one Emory Law school professor for whom that’s true, let’s go through a primer on the details of Zwier’s case.

Back in 2018, in the very first week of classes, Zwier was teaching his torts class about offensive battery and the case of Fisher v. Carrousel Motor Hotel, Inc. (I’ll give the rundown of the pertinent facts of that case because, well, law school was a long time ago for some of y’all.) In that case, a black man was denied service at a banquet at a hotel, and while offensive stuff was said to the plaintiff, the n-word was not used. Professor Zwier, however, used that word when he called on a student — a black woman to boot — to ask about the fact pattern in the case. In explaining the situation, Zwier said that while he doesn’t specifically recall using the racial slur, he may have gotten the facts of the Fisher case confused with the facts of a different case (and next on the syllabus), Bowden, where the slur was used. He later justified the use of the word (from the report of the Emory Office of Equity and Inclusion): “in using the n-word, [Zwier] intended to suggest that the court record was sanitized and that the plaintiff had actually been called the inflammatory epithet.”

Later that semester, the school began an investigation into allegations Zwier used the n-word. Again. This second incident was not in class, but in office hours when he told a student he didn’t mean to disparage anyone, and said he’d been called an n-word lover in the past. Except, you know, he didn’t say “n-word” he actually used the term.

A Faculty Hearing Committee was convened to determine what should happen to Zwier. The professor launched a full-out defense of his behavior, calling in the American Association of University Professors and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education making the case for his use of the n-word as academic freedom.

And it appears to have worked. Dean Mary Anne Bobinski sent an email to students at the law school explaining the final results of the committee’s findings and recommendations. While she gussies up the results in language about balancing the need for academic freedom with its policy against discriminatory harassment, the result is that Zwier gets to. (You can read the full email on the next page.)

I have provided Professor Zwier with my decision regarding his status, which adopts the Faculty Hearing Committee’s findings and recommendations with respect to a number of personnel actions, with only slight modifications with respect to the timing of one of the recommendations. Consistent with the Committee report, Professor Zwier will remain a tenured member of the Emory Law School faculty. He will not, however, teach mandatory courses before fall of 2021. Professor Zwier may resume his research and administrative duties, and he will likely return to the Emory campus before the end of this term.

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So yeah. He gets to keep his job and just has to take another year off of teaching 1Ls. That sound you hear? It’s a wrist, being lightly tapped.

At least Dean Bobinski seems to recognize that this result will be unsatisfactory for some members of the law school community:

I recognize that we have conflicting views within our community about the appropriate balance between Emory’s core values relating to academic freedom, equity and inclusion. The law school community has carried out a number of initiatives relating to these values over the past year, including faculty workshops on understanding and communicating with students about sensitive topics, both in and out of the classroom, and a student-led session on classroom climate. We look forward to developing new opportunities for dialogue moving forward.

Well, if the initiatives result in fewer professors dropping the n-word, I guess that’s good. Anything less is just empty rhetoric trying to mask a deeper problem.

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headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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