Five of the fifteen women now believed themselves, as Penn encouraged through
its orientations and diversity programming on racism, to be the victims of "racial
harassment." Within short order, the five women, with the university police in
tow, were sweeping the dormitory looking for offenders. Only Eden Jacobowitz, it
turned out, of the many students who had expressed their late-night annoyance,
chose to come forward into the corridor, and he freely identified himself to the
university police as the student who had shouted "water buffalo"; other students
were identified by third parties. The next day, all students suspected of shouting
were summoned one by one to the university police headquarters and asked if they had
known the race of the celebrants. Street-smart Penn students, with one guileless
exception, all said the equivalent of "No, it was dark." Eden said, "Of course.
It was bright as day out there. But their race had nothing to do with what I
said."10 The University now had
its scapegoat.
Although the other students involved in the case initially claimed that Eden
had used racial epithets, they soon recanted. As a result, Robin Read stipulated,
in the presence of Eden's advisor, that the only "offensive" comments he had made
had been "water buffalo" and "zoo."
To be considered "racial harassment" under Penn's policy, Eden's words had to be
either clear racial epithets or clear derogatory stereotypes, and they had to be
uttered "only" with the intention to inflict direct injury. How could "water buffalo"
be a racial stereotype, and how could his motive have been other than to express his
anger at the noise? When Read first informed Eden that the women had taken the
phrase "water buffalo" as a specifically racial term of abuse, he was appalled,
and he offered to explain to the young women that he had meant nothing racial
whatsoever and to apologize for any rudeness. The JIO replied, "That is not good
enough." When Eden said that "water buffalo" had no relation to race, Read said
that water buffalo were "primitive, dark animals that lived in Africa." Eden
Jacobowitz is a deeply religious Orthodox Jew, the descendant of Holocaust survivors,
and a graduate of a leading yeshiva, a religious Jewish school. When he protested
vehemently that everything in his being, his upbringing, and his religious
commitments forbade racism, Read inquired,
"Weren’t you having racist thoughts when you said ‘water
buffalo’?"13
Eden refused to accept any settlement. He wrote a courageous letter to Read, given
that she would be his prosecutor at a hearing. He accused her of putting her
"political standing" above "the rights of students" and issues of "innocence,"
because "you simply... did not want to deal with the pressures of vindicating
someone of racial harassment charges." He reminded her that both he and his roommate
originally had been charged with shouting "non-racial comments at some members
of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority on January 13," but that only he had been charged
with harassment, because "my roommate claimed not to know the race of the people
involved while I was totally and categorically indifferent to the race of the people
involved." His words, he reiterated, "referred solely and only to the noise level
outside my dormitory window." He characterized her interpretation of "water buffalo"
as "the farthest meaning from my mind . . . your words not mine." He had simply
objected to "the noise level produced by sporadic stomping and shouting right outside
my window at midnight while I was trying to write a paper." If the noisemakers had
been "Orthodox Jews," he assured her, "I would have said the same thing."
He challenged Read's claim "that it was important to take the women's interpretation
of my words and the pain that they inflicted upon them into account," reminding her
that "As you know, I have asked from the very first day . . . to meet with the women
to apologize for shouting in response to their noise and to make it clear that my
words had no racial meaning." He accused her of ignoring all the evidence of
eyewitnesses, raising in his mind "the terrifying possibility that this has become
a show trial for a new policy." He understood the possible dangers of a hearing
in the current climate, but, he wrote, "Your conclusion of guilt leaves me no choice
but to pursue justice, the most precious of human conditions." He would risk anything
to clear his name, because "I would die before shouting racist comments at anybody."
He copied his letter to President Hackney, Provost Michael Aiken, Vice-Provost for
University Life Kim Morrisson, Assistant to the President Steve Steinberg, and the
general counsel.12 No one replied. Read eventually wrote back,
a month later, disagreeing with his characterization of their discussions and her
motives.13 The entire weight of the University was coming down
on a frightened freshman. Shortly after refusing the settlement, Eden called
history professor Alan Kors, who became his new advisor.
