Stephanie Grace and Racism in the Upper Echelons

For several days now, the name of Stephanie Grace has left anonymity only to become notorious. Why is that? Stephanie Grace is a 3rd year student at the Harvard Law School (HLS). And one night over dinner she had an argument with some colleagues, in which she expressed her opinion that African Americans are genetically predisposed to being less intelligent than white Americans. After dinner, just to make sure she made her point clear, she sent an email to her friends reinforcing her beliefs. The email was later forwarded to the association for African-American HLS students. And that's when the shit hit the fan. And that's when Harvard took it personally and her name became a synonym for racism in the upper echelons.

My two cents about this: I am divided with respect to the scandal. No, I am not racist nor do I think Grace is right. But must we watch out for everything we say, even in a personal email that was not initially intended for the larger public? In any case, public shaming is not the way to convince her, and dialogue might be a better option here. Also, this racist woman has now become the scapegoat for everything that HLS has not done to stop racism until now. Stephanie Grace is just one of the many racist Americans, and one of some racist Americans who attend Ivy League schools and other prestigious institutions. Let's have the issue out in the open, get a dialogue going about discrimination and try to convince these people that they're wrong. If we repress freedom of speech, we will allow racism to continue at the same scale but on a more secretive level, and maybe turn into something worse.

Clearly, there are still unresolved issues in the texture of the American society- and of any diverse society, for that matter. Racism, sexism and other types of discrimination are among these issues. And clearly, the way they've been dealt with up until now, which has been to pass a law and then turn them into taboos has not solved the problem. We need to be a little more thick-skinned and accept a dialogue about them, even if some might be offended by the opinions they hear. We might be able to change some minds with the right arguments. We cannot afford to avoid addressing discrimination any more.