The People vs. Harvard Law : how America's oldest law school turned its back on free speech

In 2002, a Filipino-American student named Kiwi Camara joined most of his Harvard Law School classmates in posting his class outlines from the previous year on the school Web site. But he didn't bother to edit out the racial slurs he had used as shorthand in taking the notes originally. When other students saw what he had written, a furor erupted. Camara became an object of scorn and hatred. Administrators seeking to placate outraged minority students proposed a speech code that would prohibit members of the law school community from uttering "racially insensitive" remarks. Soon faculty members were drawn into the controversy, as Harvard Law put free speech on trial during one of the most difficult years in its history.In this fascinating insider's account, Andrew Peyton Thomas takes us into the administrative offices, faculty lounges and classrooms, recounting the personal conversations, verbal violence and political infighting that marked this lacerating episode. He reveals how the student body divided into warring camps, and how the intellectual heavyweights of Harvard Law-Alan Dershowitz, Charles Fried, Laurence Tribe, Charles Nesson and others-were drawn into bitter conflict with each other and with the school administration. As the value of free speech was called into question, collegiality crumbled, careers were threatened and longstanding friendships wrecked. Daily life at the school became an ordeal as students and faculty alike tried to navigate the political minefields.The People v. Harvard Law turns the confrontation that Kiwi Camara touched off into a fascinating case history, while showing that it is only the latest front in a culture war that has ravaged the nation's oldest and most prestigious law school for the last twenty-five years. In 2002, Kiwi Camara, a Filipino-American student studying at the Harvard Law School, joined most of his classmates in posting his class outlines for the previous year on the school website. But in his notes, Camara had used shorthand terms widely regarded as racial slurs. In the furor that followed, administrators proposed a speech code to prohibit members of the law school community from voicing racially insensitive remarks. In this fascinating insider’s account, Andrew Peyton Thomas recounts how the school’s intellectual heavyweights—Charles Fried, Alan Dershowitz, Laurence Tribe, Charles Nessen and others—were drawn into open conflict with each other and with the administration. Thomas takes us into the administrative offices, faculty lounges and classrooms, showing that the Camara case is only the latest front in a culture war that has ravaged Harvard Law over the last 25 years. In 2002, Kiwi Camara, a Filipino-American at Harvard Law School, joined most of his classmates in posting his class outlines for the previous year on the school web site. Controversy ensued because some found aspects of Camara's shorthand racially insensitive. In response, school administrators proposed a speech code. Harvard Law Graduate Andrew Peyton Thomas uses this controversy to take readers inside the administrative offices, faculty lounges, and classrooms of the nation's oldest and most prestigious law school. He finds freedom of speech and basic constitutional liberties clashing with racial demagogues, Marxist-inspired professors, and a smothering orthodoxy that seeks to silence student dissent. Thomas also ventures brilliantly off campus to reveal how what happens at Harvard Law affects the nation whose most powerful institutions are filled with its graduates. Sixteen-year-old Filipino-American Kiwi Camara was the youngest student ever admitted into Harvard Law School. In 2002, like his fellow first-year classmates, the intellectually-gifted Camara posted his class notes and outlines on the law school's website, where they were accessible to the law school community. The discovery of racial slurs in Camara's notes set off a debate over free speech, dividing the student body and drawing faculty into battles with each other and with school. Administrators. Thomas documents the events surrounding the controversy and explores what they reveal about issues that have been brewing at Harvard over the last 25 years. A Harvard Law School graduate, Thomas now works as the district attorney of Maricopa County, Arizona. Annotation 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).