Why we need to hold racist law student Stephanie Grace accountable

If you don’t know Stephanie Grace’s name already, you will soon. The third-year Harvard law student is making waves in the blogosphere after a racist email she sent went viral. Grace apparently made some racist comments at a group dinner and later sent an email to, ahem, clarify her position. It’s not good. (You can find the full email here)

I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial:) Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders.

Yeah. Now, there’s nothing particularly shocking about someone being racist – lots of people are. (And apparently, Harvard is a bit of a hotbed of unabashed racism.) But as Jill points out in her amazing take down of this whole shitstorm, this is not just about Grace. It’s about the blogs and comments that are defending her by claiming that her email isn’t racist or that folks should give her a break, that her name shouldn’t be disclosed lest she lose her job, and – perhaps most hilariously – that by discussing this email and believing Grace should be accountable to what she’s written, people are somehow destroying free speech. Some have even suggested that this isn’t about racism at all, but a (sigh) “catfight.”
Bloggers like Jill at Feministe and Latoya and Thea at Racialicious have already explained why all this is so important (and why it’s so fucked up) much better than I could – so I really encourage you to read their posts while I go bang my head up against a wall.
But I will say this: the idea that Grace – a Princeton grad and Harvard law school student with a clerkship in the Ninth Circuit – is somehow a poor little thing who needs to be protected from her own words is just ridiculous. We’re all accountable to the things we say – but it’s especially important that someone with power and access to power over other people’s lives (which Grace will undoubtedly have through her career) is held accountable. And no, I don’t feel badly for her at all.