Correspondence.

We, the Yale Black Law Students Association (BLSA), believe that individuals who have used racial slurs should not be welcomed into the Yale Law School community. We therefore submit this letter to oppose The Yale Law Journal's decision to invite K.A.D. Camara to our campus.

Mr. Camara is one of the co-authors of Quasipublic Executives in this Symposium Issue of The Yale Law Journal. While a student at Harvard Law School, Mr. Camara publicized a course outline in which he repeatedly referred to Black people as "nigs." Although the Journal's editors made a cursory investigation into Mr. Camara's background prior to extending the invitation, (1) they did not discover this history until weeks later, when an anonymous e-mailer provided them with the details.

Rather than notifying the entire Law School that a significant issue had landed on our community's doorstep, the Journal's leadership deliberated and ultimately decided without first hearing what the Law School community had to say. BLSA, however, also received the anonymous e-mail about Mr. Camara's actions at Harvard and informed the Journal of its official position, which remains the same today: BLSA did not and does not support the publication of Mr. Camara's essay. Our position seems not seriously to have been taken into consideration. Furthermore, it was left to another anonymous e-mailer to bring the rest of the Yale Law School community into the discussion.

Faced with controversy, the Journal made public overtures suggesting a willingness to reconsider the matter. However, it treated the decision to invite Mr. Camara as a foregone conclusion. A select group of Journal leaders agreed that the invitation could not be revoked lest the Journal be accused of censorship. Such fear of criticism demonstrates timid leadership and, in this case, was little more than a faint-hearted excuse. As Journal Editor-in-Chief C.J. Mahoney acknowledged in a school-wide forum, the Journal would have had much less of a problem rejecting Mr. Camara's proposal had it initially conducted a more thorough investigation and discovered his checkered history. It is therefore clear that the real reason for the Journal's decision was neither a loft), belief in Mr. Camara's freedom of expression nor a desire to conform to academic norms. Rather, the Journal's editors knew that rescinding Mr. Camara's invitation would have public relations consequences, and they simply did not find Mr. Camara's use of hate speech to...