It’s the end of the semester, and given the circumstances, I feel like being a bit raw, venomous and polemical in this piece. If you want a well-polished statement, please read Mx. George’s. But before I start, some context.

Harvey Silverglate is an 86-year-old New England attorney, co-founder of FIRE and a free speech absolutist.

So, of course, he said the N-word. This man is not Black.

I sit close to the Speaker’s podium at the YPU. However, even I had trouble understanding what he said throughout his speech: while Silverglate may be an accomplished attorney, he is not a skilled, nor engaging, nor entertaining, nor articulate orator.

Nevertheless, I heard him use the word. For those who could hear him use it, we looked around at each other to confirm what had just happened. For the significant portion of the body that didn’t hear him due both to his general incoherence and his inability to use the microphone consistently, there was much confusion as to why a quarter of the room seemed suddenly startled, and half that quarter seemed to look at me. While I famously appreciate the attention, I suspect it wasn’t the usual admiration I get for my attire.

Unfortunately for both them and the audience, the President and Speaker at the dias were among those unable to hear Silverglate’s use of the N-word. Had he been heard by the Speaker, he would have been gavelled down for using unparliamentary language, as is the procedure.

The Union does not stand for this. As one of two Black members on the Union’s Board and the Union Historian — making me acutely aware of its fraught past — I’ve been impressed with the Union’s improved ability to navigate discussions about race this semester.

Much of this is owed to the two on the stage. Our President, Riya Bhargava ’26, has led the Union with extreme care towards all its members. Our Speaker, AJ Tapia-Wylie ’26, through the Speaker’s Triangle, has succeeded in the herculean task of soliciting and ordering student speeches from all parties of the Union while maintaining quality in both substance and style across the board.

However Mr. Silverglate couldn’t help himself from soiling what could have been a tidy end to a wonderful semester. And of course, this isn’t his first racial slur rodeo.

After a previous N-word controversy at Milton Academy in which Siverglate said the word in reference to a book title by a Black academic, he attempted to defend it. In a Quillette article — a publication so dedicated to free speech that none of its articles are worth paying for — he argued that he needed to say the N-word verbatim. The context called for it, he’s a free speech absolutist and, without being able to use it, we would “have to leave gaps” in the works of Black people who do use the word.

So he needed to use the N-word when referring to the book, even though anyone with half a brain could tell what book he was referring to if he just used the “N-word” in its place, especially considering that he was literally holding up a copy of it. 

I’d assume similar logic governed his decision on our floor earlier this week. This is, again, wrong for a few reasons. 

First, ignoring the fact that his speech was substantively weak anyway even if he had said “the N-word,” we all would have got the gist. In fact, we might be spending more time thinking about his flimsy points than litigating his awful choice of words. Nobody, hearing that a Black student at Princeton in the mid-20th century was being called the N-word, would think that N-word meant “nice-fellow-deserving-of-an-eating-club-bid.” We would have got it.

Second, you are not supposed to say certain things on a parliamentary floor out of respect for others. Parliamentary democracies have rules against “unparliamentary language,” like calling other members liars or using profanity because addressing a respectable body like a parliament demands that speakers be respectful. Arguing that non-Black people can say the N-word due to freedom of speech is correct legally — I guess his Harvard J.D. wasn’t a total waste — but doing so in practice is highly anti-social, obnoxious, offensive, childish, disrespectful and counterproductive.

Third, his rationale that if we were to stop using the N-word, we would “have to leave gaps” in the work of prominent Black figures is a gross use of Black people’s lived experience to justify using offensive language. But you know what, I’ll be generous and say that, as long as he never reads any book in translation ever and teaches himself the native language of every author he intends to read, he can be a purist about the use of original language.

Both Mr. Silverglates usage of the N-word and I suspect his rationale for why its use is okay are offensive, vulgar and unbecoming not only of a prominent attorney but of any decent American. I’m glad he’s spent so much time arguing over our right to say things, I hope now he takes some time to deliberate on what is right to say.

It was also incredibly disrespectful to my Union, my Speaker and my President. This year’s Political Union Board has worked tirelessly to manage the largest student organization on campus, and frankly, we all deserve a better end to the semester than what Mr. Silverglate gave us: a weak defense of institutional neutrality, banal anecdotes, stale humor and antiquated language. 

I hope my directness wasn’t too harsh, but why self-censor? Sticks and stones, am I right?

MILES KIRKPATRICK is a sophomore in Saybrook College majoring in the Humanities. His column, “Looking Across the Aisle,” runs biweekly and discusses right-wing politics and spaces at Yale and nationwide. He can be reached at miles.kirkpatrick@yale.edu.