Stephanie Grace, a third year student at Harvard Law School, sent an email to a few (?) students in an effort to clarify remarks she made about race during a dinner conversation. The content therein is racist and sexist. She says she does not rule out the possibility that “African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.” Less intelligent than what, I am not sure. However! She also states that she could “be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people (the standard by which all intelligence is judged – Ed.) under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic.”
Things go downhill from there. She claims that “prenatal levels of testosterone” are to blame for women’s inferiority in mathematics. She also categorizes this as a “genetic,” so perhaps testosterone levels contribute to women’s inferiority in biology as well.
That email eventually made its way to several Black Law Students Associations (BLSAs) and now, the Internet at large. Despite Above The Law‘s efforts to keep her anonymous, Grace’s name got out, and people are angry! Some are angry about the content of Grace’s email, but many are angry that Grace’s “privacy” was not respected – that she is being “victimized.” Just browse Above The Law for a little while (if you can stomach it) to see where America’s future attorneys stand.
This post is not about Stephanie Grace specifically, because Stephanie Graces are a dime a dozen. This one just felt comfortable enough to put her pseudo-intellectual bigotry into an easily-transmittable format. The defenses of Stephanie Grace are more interesting than the woman herself.
Predictably, Grace’s white peers are rallying around her. If you don’t want to venture into the comment sections of law student blogs, how about Gawker, or this comment, for instance.
You don’t really know her so how can you judge her?!
This is a case of youthful indiscretion.
You can’t expect a grown ass person who has attended two Ivy League universities to know what qualifies as racism and that racism is bad!
And that’s from someone who appears to agree that the email contains racist sentiments. But y’know, it was supposed to be private!
White people give Grace the benefit of the doubt, and beg others to do the same. White people are privileged to get the benefit of the doubt over, and over, and over again. Stephanie Grace is extremely lucky because her educational credentials, tone and seemingly rational thought process provide a thick layer of protection. But she sounds so scholarly! She doesn’t want white people to be smarter than black people; it’s just science! She’s not from the South!
Unfortunately, anyone who thinks Grace’s career is over as a result of this incident underestimates the market for racist, sexist writers and columnists, pundits and governors. She’ll probably become a judge. In conservative circles she’ll be hailed as a politically incorrect hero.
Despite this, everyone is very concerned about the repercussions for Stephanie Grace. But what about the repercussions for POC who come into contact with her and people like her? To be accused of racism–or outed as a racist–is not worse than being the victim of racism. A privileged person’s future is not more important than a marginalized person’s future, but it is given priority. Because privileged people have more to lose?
As an almost-graduate of Harvard Law, Grace is poised to attain real power in the world. She has a federal clerkship lined up for the summer. People with bigoted views must be outed before they climb the ranks and cause serious damage.
One of the writers on Above the Law (Lat, I think) worried that she was a “victim of character assasination.” It blows my mind that any reasonable person could think that linking a person’s name to her own (un-edited, in context, non-private) words. She assasinated her own character with her racist ideas and utter lack of critical thinking skills. The intertubes just broadcasted her thoughts to a much wider audience than she anticipated. I do not feel sorry for her at all.
The outrage over her “outing” in the media is driving me insane.
(1) she’s a kid! no, no she is NOT. She’s about to graduate Harvard Law, she’s in her mid-20s she not a fucking “kid”
(2) it’s her private views! so the fuck what? Her private views are racist, I don’t want her shaping law and policy in this country
(3) What happened to intellectual curiosity? Can’t we pose questions anymore? Give me a motherfucking break. This is the worst one of all. She’s racist, she’s not posing a question she’s using dubious “science” to confirm her own innate racism.
And I haven’t even looked at the comments at Above the Law because, vomit, I hate that site, I am sworn enemies with that site
And of course, even illustrious, Nobel Prize-winning scientists aren’t immune, as we’re all familiar with our friend here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/18/science.race/index.html
Also, am I the only one who saw a double meaning in “women’s inferiority in biology,” as it could also be read as women’s biological inferiority to men? As much as I hate to invoke the theories of Sigmund Fraud, could there be some penis envy on Grace’s part?
I will say it again – content of the e-mail aside, I would never hire an attorney who, well into their legal education, displayed the lack of judgment and discretion seen here. You write it, you send it, don’t be surprised if it ends up public. Never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want to answer for in court – that’s what my dad the judge taught me.
It’s disgusting how, unsurprisingly, she will be painted as such a martyr in various circles. It always happens how every single time someone says something, as long as they’re white, they’re innocent.
I’m sure Stephanie Grace is also one of those people that defends herself by saying, “I have tons of gay friends” or “I have plenty of black friends.”
How repugnant.
I used to work as a secretary in a law office to pay for undergrad. The point that you never write down anything that you might not want getting out is very quickly driven home even at that level. (Heck, we didn’t even tell callers whether the lawyers were in or not, just available or unavailable.) The fact that she was worried about getting “Larry Summersed” should have been clue enough to her that she shouldn’t write it down AND that it was stupid. Even if she doesn’t wind up having repercussions for her views, she should feel repercussions for her terrible common sense.
Hehe, Cat, Grace didn’t write that; I did.
I obviously think this is a vile email/opinion/person, but I’m not sure about the whole “she emailed it, she deserves it” argument. Who exactly did she email it to? I feel like I have sent emails to friends on multiple occasions in which I said extreme things like threatening to slowly poison certain Supreme Court justices, which would mean my professional ruin if spread widely. I certainly don’t feel that I was publishing those opinions and would feel violated if someone made them public.
I don’t feel any sympathy for her, just not sure about that particular argument.
@Flackette: Totally co-sign. Stephanie Grace is a highly educated woman about to get her JD from one of the best law schools in the country. There’s no way she didn’t know the implications of what she was doing.
Question for the room: if the sender of this e-mail had been a man—not a cute blonde chick—would there have been such a rush to defend her?
Fine, she’s entitled to her opinion. If she wants to tra-la-la through life thinking these things, so be it, her prerogative. But… if she is going into the legal profession in any capacity, she needs to shed those opinions post-haste. True, she could certainly get a job with a more conservative, more closed-minded firm, or become a judge via election, but the last thing the legal profession needs is another lawyer with a possible negative opinion of her clients. So many terrible things have been done to people in the name of “justice,” by lawyers with personal agendas, that this thing not only needs to be repeated and amplified, but this needs to dog her her whole career. If she becomes a judge, defense attorneys should use it to force her to recuse herself in cases involving their black clients. If she becomes a prosecutor, her views should be made part of every trial. The world needs fewer Stephanie Graces, not more of them.
@JD: as near as I can tell she had made some controversial statements about race at some sort of official/non-official/quasi-official, school group function. Then she emailed later to clarify her statements, we don’t know how many people.
I’m not sure if I agree with the she emailed it she deserves it position either. I am more along the lines of, she emailed it, she got caught and we (royal we, the public) had the rare opportunity to be apprised of her views. I think she deserves it because she’s clearly racist and she has the potential to be in very powerful positions within our judicial system.
@Becky – Honestly, I think so, yes. People defend Glenn Beck and that cop in the Henry Louis Gates thing and so on. People defended Larry Summers! What I really wonder is about whether if Grace were male, would the e-mail have gotten out in the first place?
What gets me about this particular thing is the continued insistence that a question cannot hold any ideological weight, that there is no such thing as an ideological question in the way that there are ideological statements.
I agree Becky. It’s just the lawyerly snobbery I object to — “as a lawyer she should have known better than to commit it to an email!” I prefer, “as a human she should have known better than to think such a thing.”
and by becky, I meant bluebears.
As a math student later in life, I take particular umbrage at her comments about women being worse at the subject due to testosterone levels in the womb. WTF?
As a math student later in life, I take particular umbrage at her comments about women being worse at the subject due to testosterone levels in the womb. WTF?
It’s nowhere near as offensive as her racial comments, but it all comes from the same bullshit place.
agreed JD. I have to say, I’m sure I’ve been indiscreet more than once. I try my best, and would never reveal a client confidence, but I’m human.
@JD: True. Although I secretly suspect—in my own paranoid way—that there are TONS of people in the legal system who agree with Stephanie who haven’t been caught out simply because being lawyers, they DO know better than to commit it to writing.
It reminds me of Mr. Guppy in Bleak House and his ironic protestation: “I am no villain, sir! I am a member of the legal profession!”
oh girl I KNOW for a FACT that a vast swath of the legal profession is filled with people who think this is a “rational” and nuanced view of race. And would take these positions quite straight faced in class and in conversation. And I definitely enjoy that she was dumb enough to get caught at it! Most people just write local columns in their school papers expressing such views though.
So do you think they’ll rescind the offer of the federal clerkship, JD? If for no other reason than because she was dumb enough to get caught?
Depends on the judge I figure. Anyone know who it is? Half of them are too old and out of it to even have caught wind of something like this.
Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Alex Kozinski, according to the Gawker link.
Honestly I really doubt they’ll rescind the offer.
Yikes! I think it’s pretty unlikely too. Actually she’ll probably do juuuuust fine, like most abject racists!
Whoa…a Google search turns up all kinds of interesting stuff on Judge Kozinski.
Sounds like he’s pretty proficient with the Internet, though.
Like I said, people like her are in high demand. This will turn out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to her.
He sounds like a peach, no? And the 9th circuit is considered “more liberal.”
Um, people in federal clerkships represent we the people because they’re government employees, right? Can we write to whomever is giving her a clerkship and request that her appointment be withdrawn?
Wow, Judge Kozinski is quite the guy! How is it appropriate for a judge to host a website with young women on all fours next to aroused farm animals?
I am particularly amused by the fact that Scalia has admonished this guy in the past.
@JetGirl – according to an e-mail from his wife (http://patterico.com/2008/06/16/alex-kozinskis-wife-speaks-out/) what happened was that they had a server on their home network that was badly secured (not a website) and that server had a folder full of “humor” images, including a video of a naked guy being chased by an aroused donkey. That site also has links to what was actually on the server (http://patterico.com/2008/06/12/exclusive-kozinskis-porn-images-from-judge-alex-kozinskis-web-site/ and http://patterico.com/2008/06/23/the-material-from-judge-kozinskis-websiteserver-part-two-including-videos/ ). I wouldn’t say that any of that is something I would want a judge to have on his home PC in my ideal world, but it’s certainly not as bad as, e.g., that college professor in California who also runs a sex tourism guide website.
Thanks, Baraqiel. I still don’t know that I’d want him as my judge, but then again, I may be holding them to unrealistic standards. Don’t even get me started on that college prof. He’s in my area, and the paper I worked for was all over that story. Eww. What a tool. I pity the women in his classes.
Amen, Sarah. That’s the best take-down in this that I’ve read yet.
This just proves that with enough privilege and expensive education, you can be anything you want – even a public racist! That’s the real American Dream right?
@ Cat,
I blame Watson and his ilk for a lot of the proliferation of this mindset. If it weren’t for “celebrity endorsements” of eugenics, Grace might not be any less racist, but she probably wouldn’t think to use “science” as a shield. The sad part is, Watson and others have been quietly eviscerated by the scientific community, but that story never makes it into the news, so people think they’re “controversial” rather than just wrong.
One of the issues that really bugs me is when people who have *no training in genetics* make broad proclamations that a certain trait or behavior is either biological or more prevalent in a certain “race.” I’m not an expert, either, but at least I know enough to realize that genetics is a very complex issue and I might want to read what the experts have to say about it before I start making random assertions. Don’t folks think they should know a little something about a subject before they talk about it?
As an aside, I recently read an interesting book on this subject called Race in Mind: Race, IQ, and Other Racisms by Alexander Alland. I recommend the book even though it gets a bit heavy in certain sections (e.g., clinal variations):
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=61-9780312238384-1
What I find annoying/sad/infuriating about this is that Grace’s training at HLS and Princeton will probably be more important for her career than the fact that she’s a raging, pseudo-scientific bigot.
***Princeton will probably be more important for her career than the fact that she’s a raging, pseudo-scientific bigot.***
Do you think that about Princeton bio-ethicist, Peter Singer? He notes that ‘A Darwinian Left’ would not:
“Assume that all inequalities are due to discrimination, prejudice, oppression or social conditioning. Some will be, but this cannot be assumed in every case”
Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker’s 2006 Edge Essay on dangerous ideas entitled “Groups of people may differ genetically in their average talents and temperaments”.
You should follow Professor Steve Hsu’s advice:
“it is important to note that group differences are statistical in nature and do not imply anything about particular individuals. Rather than rely on the scientifically unsupported claim that we are all equal, it would be better to emphasize that we all have inalienable human rights regardless of our abilities or genetic makeup.” (Jan 2007)
***She claims that “prenatal levels of testosterone” are to blame for women’s ***
This is what Professor Doreen Kimura suggests.
http://www.sfu.ca/~dkimura/articles/Ceci%20Essay.htm
(2007) Why Aren’t More Women In Science? S.J. Ceci & W. Williams (Eds.), APA Books, 39-46.
@bluebears: The 9th Circuit *is* the most liberal circuit generally speaking, but it’s also the biggest appellate circuit so despite its general liberalness, it’s not staffed solely by libs. Kozinski is well to the right of most 9th Circuit judges, but if he sat on the 7th Circuit, for example, he be considered more centrist.
Kozinski also doesn’t really follow the party line – he’s kind of Scalia-esque in that his opinions are often snarky and funny, but he’s more independent than Scalia when it comes to actual decisions. He’s a little manic pixie-ish, if you will. The creepy porn thing was creepy, for sure, and totally inappropriate, as well, but he was known for being quirky and off-beat for years before that.
All of which is to say, I would be surprised if he pulled Grace’s clerkship – he doesn’t have any reason to, really, having survived the porn thing (people were calling for him to be impeached), and being a conservative judge, surely he runs in circles where these types of views are espoused. The lesson he learned is the one Ms. Grace is learning now: keep it to yourself. It’s not the content that’s the problem, it’s the dissemination.
On the bright side, however, Kozinski’s clerks work 16-hour days seven days a week. It’s not a summer clerkship, either, it’s a full year, with no vacations. A Kozinski clerkship is one of the most grueling and brutal in the country – it’s the lawyer version of a tour of duty, if you’ve got a family, don’t even bother moving them to Pasadena because you’ll never see them. On the other hand, Kozinski is a feeder judge, which means his clerks have a HUGE advantage when it comes to obtaining Supreme Court clerkships (which is why people suffer through a year in his service in the first place). Can’t you just see Thomas picking up Grace *because* of this email?
Oh, and hey, by the way, Above the Law has a poll – was the email offensive? Was it racist?
Shockingly, the majority of the ATL readership does NOT think the email was racist. About 65% think it was very offensive or somewhat offensive.
A link, if you can hold your breath long enough to venture over there and cast your vote: ATL Grace Email Poll
Thanks for that link, Penny. I just cast my vote.