Baala Shakya, Contributing Photographer

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story misquoted Harvey Silverglate’s use of a racial slur. He was originally quoted as saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but N***** can never hurt me.” However, Silverglate said the slur after the expression, referring to a friend from college. The News regrets this error. 

Harvey Silverglate — a co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, also known as FIRE — was met with gasps by the Yale Political Union audience as he uttered a racial slur, saying “sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never harm me … Ames was called a N*****,” referring to his friend from college.

After the debate, the YPU president Riya Bhargava ’26 and speaker AJ Tapia-Wylie ’26 wrote to the News that racial slurs and epithets are “unacceptable” at the YPU. They affirmed that had they caught the slur when it was said, they would have “gaveled down” and cut off Silverglate. However, they told the News that they were unable to catch the word due to the “incoherence of his speech and the positioning of the speakers away from the stage.”

“The Union has long been a space for meaningful and difficult conversations on race, recognizing its deep connection to politics,” Bhargava and Tapia-Wylie wrote. “However, we draw the line when discourse by any individual speaker descends into the realm of naturally unproductive epithets or slurs, and do not entertain their usage on our floor.”

Bhargava told the News that if a member of the Union had used such language, they would have pursued formal action in accordance with University Policies. On behalf of the YPU, she expressed her regret of how the events of the night unfolded.

While the initial utterance of the racial slur by Silverglate was met with a few gasps of shock, confusion quickly overwhelmed parts of the room as whisperings over the proceedings tore through the audience. Although some students seemed alarmed at the event, Yale Political Union members ultimately did not acknowledge Silverglate’s usage of the slur outright. 

Silverglate wrote the News that his speech argued that speech should be “entirely free,” and that his point would have been “substantially diluted had [he] used the common ‘N-word.’”

“I am told that there was quite a brouhaha over my use of the word [expletive] during my talk at the Yale Political Union,” Silverglate wrote, using the N-word in an email. “I would have been a hypocrite to have used the evasive term ‘N-word.’”

Miles Kirkpatrick ’27, the YPU historian and an attendee of the event, was seated in the front row close to the podium. Although Kirkpatrick heard Silverglate use the slur in reference to a Black student being called the N-word in college, Kirkpatrick echoed Bhargava and noted that Silverglate’s speech was “incredibly difficult to parse, both due to his delivery and technical issues.”

“I think for the members who heard it we were more taken aback than outraged in the moment given his nonchalant usage, and the fact that this sort of language has never featured on the floor of [the] union as long as I have been a member,” Kirkpatrick wrote. 

Tuesday’s debate was YPU’s final debate of the semester. The topic was “Resolved: Universities Should Be Institutionally Neutral.” 

Silverglate argued that universities should not take political positions “no matter how tempting it might be.” He believes that the University should be a community where everyone feels comfortable and welcome to express their views “no matter how idiosyncratic.” Silverglate noted that the freedom and comfort to express views includes those that are “racist, sexist and homophobic.”

Silverglate explained that he founded FIRE — whose mission statement is to “defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought” — after receiving overwhelmingly positive responses to a book he co-authored called “The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses.” The book criticizes a perceived tendency for universities to censor students for politically incorrect speech.

Silverglate concluded his talk by noting how “some universities have learned the hard way that [institutional neutrality] is the only way to run a university.” He recalled the controversy of former Harvard president Claudine Gay.

“[Claudine Gay] testified in front of a congressional committee and was unable to explain freedom of expression, and when she got back to Cambridge, there was a move to get her out of the president’s office,” said Silverglate. “Harvard put her in the president’s office because of her gender and her race … [Harvard then] decided to stop playing sexual politics and got serious … adopting a policy of institutional neutrality.”

University President Maurie McInnis adopted the Committee on Institutional Voice report in October that advised Yale leaders to refrain from making statements on issues of public significance. However, in contrast to other universities, the report is only guidelines and leaders will not face consequences for diverging from the suggested restraint.

After Silverglate concluded his speech, Richie George ’27, the YPU Floor Leader of the Left, explained to the audience that Yale’s Woodward report says that a free exchange of ideas has to happen both within the University and outside of it.

“It’s unreasonable for faculty that study our society not to comment on them,” said George. “There was a day when people looked to our universities for knowledge. In an age when institutions of higher education are being challenged every single day, we have to ensure that our relevance, our existence here, presents a real presence in our community.”

George continued his argument stating that institutional neutrality is not truly possible as Yale as an institution is not in any way separated from society. George notes that regardless of what the four-page report says, “Yale is still New Haven, Yale is still the United States and Yale is still a beacon for liberal education internationally.”

Bhargava argued for institutional neutrality, stating that because universities have traditionally been centers of the production of truth and knowledge, institutions can “neither be predicated nor compelled into some slogan, some orthodox party line or some fixed dogma.”

The Yale Political Union was founded in 1934.

Correction, 12/5: This article has been updated to clarify that George was referencing the Woodward report, not Yale’s Committee on Institutional Voice.

Update, 12/5: This article has been updated with comment from Harvey Silverglate.