Randall L Kennedy

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

Mandatory DEI Statements Are Ideological Pledges of Allegiance

Time to Abandon Them

12 April, 2024

Randall L Kennedy

Academia

With Volokh. Eugene. The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in The Classroom and Beyond

1 January, 2021

Randall L Kennedy

Politics & Activism

Why We Need Good Police

I do not believe that policing is our only salvation. I do not believe that we can police our way to public safety. I do not believe that we can attain durable, just, enjoyable public security without a massive effort to improve the provision of employment, wealth, housing, and medical care. I...

1 January, 2021

Randall L Kennedy

Politics & Activism

On the Authority of Experience in Black Thought

The spectrum of thought amongst African Americans is and has always been much broader and multifarious than commonly perceived. Neglect of that fact has led to an homogenization that has tended to submerge African American individuality. [...]

1 January, 2021

Randall L Kennedy

Politics & Activism

Is It Ever OK to Enunciate a Slur in the Classroom?

I insist upon advancing the message that, in circumstances in which 'nigger' is aired for pedagogical purposes, there is no good reason to feel hurt. It does no favor to students to spare their feelings if doing so comes at the expense of valuable education.

1 January, 2021

Randall L Kennedy

Politics & Activism

The ebb and flow of racial progress. (Review of Wilkerson, Elizabeth, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, 2020.)

1 January, 2020

Randall L Kennedy

Academia

How Racist Are Universities, Really?

Being on the side of anti-racism is no inoculation against error. An allegation of systemic racism leveled against a university is a serious charge. If the allegation is substantiated, it ought to occasion protest and rectification commensurate with the wrong. If an allegation is flimsy or baseless...

1 January, 2020

Randall L Kennedy

Politics & Activism

The George Floyd Moment: Promise and Peril

1 January, 2020

Randall L Kennedy

Academia

When a Dean Defends Harvey Weinstein

1 January, 2019

Randall L Kennedy

Politics & Activism

How a Dispute Over the N-Word Became a Dispiriting Farce

1 January, 2019

Randall L Kennedy

Politics & Activism

Lifting as We Climb: A progressive defense of respectability politics

1 January, 2015

Randall L Kennedy

Free Speech / 1st Amendment

Private Universities and the First Amendment?

The recent past demonstrates that freedom of expression on college campuses has attained a breadth and intensity of support, within academe and without, that is unprecedented in the nation’s history.

22 September, 1994

Randall L Kennedy

Politics & Activism

Racial Critiques of Legal Academia

[T]he writings of Bell, Delgado, and Matsuda reveal significant deficiencies - the most general of which is a tendency to evade or suppress complications that render their conclusions problematic. Stated bluntly, they fail to support persuasively their claims of racial exclusion or their claims...

1 January, 1989

Randall L Kennedy

Mandatory DEI Statements Are Ideological Pledges of Allegiance

With Volokh. Eugene. The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in The Classroom and Beyond

Why We Need Good Police

On the Authority of Experience in Black Thought

Is It Ever OK to Enunciate a Slur in the Classroom?

The ebb and flow of racial progress. (Review of Wilkerson, Elizabeth, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, 2020.)

How Racist Are Universities, Really?

The George Floyd Moment: Promise and Peril

When a Dean Defends Harvey Weinstein

How a Dispute Over the N-Word Became a Dispiriting Farce

Lifting as We Climb: A progressive defense of respectability politics

Private Universities and the First Amendment?

Racial Critiques of Legal Academia

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