Editor’s Note: The original version of this article submitted by the author included the use of slurs in quotation. The News’ policy is to not print slurs in full and the piece was edited accordingly, with the author’s approval.

I am frankly astonished that I have to defend my choice of words during a lecture uttered at an event sponsored by the Yale Political Union on the subject of free speech. However, the news story reporting my talk, plus the two hysterical student articles in the Yale Daily News, compel me to do so.

My problem, apparently, is that I uttered the word “n****r” during the course of my talk. However, this was not gratuitous; it was relevant to the subject of my talk — the transcendent importance of free speech. If memory serves, I uttered the word in two contexts.

One context was in speaking about my undergraduate college — Princeton — where I was a member of the Class of 1964. Back then, there was not a single American Black student on the campus. The first Black student to study at Princeton was Robert Engs, Class of 1965, one year behind me. His father, I noted humorously, was an Air Force general who had the power to strafe  the campus if Princeton had not admitted his son. I pointed out that over half of my classmates came from South of the Mason-Dixon line. That toxic place had few Jews, and, I said during my lecture, I was called “k**e” to my face. In that toxic atmosphere, Blacks and Jews were on an equal footing. Yet, I and my fellow Jews managed to survive.

The second context was a discussion of my earlier lecture at Milton Academy. My topic there was free speech, as it was at Yale. I referred to a book authored by Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy, the title of which was N****r: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. I did not even have a chance to explain why I was bringing up Prof. Kennedy’s book, for most of the Milton students stood up and left the room. I explained to those remaining behind why I used the actual title of Prof. Kennedy’s book. It would have been ironic, I explained, for the author to use the word in the title but for me to not be able to use it simply because I am white and Prof. Kennedy is Black. By the way, Prof. Kennedy had to justify his use of the word to his fellow Harvard Law professors, who had tried to talk him out of it.

It would have been ironic, indeed, for me to have used the evasive term “N-word” in my lecture. My whole point was that such evasions have been with us seemingly forever. Was I obliged to share that same evasion merely because I am white rather than black like Prof. Kennedy or my two student critics?        

Let me now turn to some of the points made by one of the two Black Yale undergraduates who wrote a criticism of me in the Yale Daily News, Miles Kirkpatrick. Aside from mis-stating my age — I am 82, not 86 — Mr. Kirkpatrick points out in the third paragraph of his attack that I am “not Black.” Pray tell why my race should matter. Is it not racist to insist that it’s OK for Blacks, but not for whites, to use the toxic term?

Mr. Kirkpatrick also notes that I wrote an article for Quillette in which I recounted my experience at Milton Academy. Mr. Kirkpatrick misses my point entirely and fails to see the irony in his attack: I am supposed to self-censor in an article in which I complain about being censored.

Yale undergraduate Richie George penned the second essay attacking me. They claim that it was hard to hear me. Yale’s practice of students’ stomping their feet on the floor during a lecture contributed to this problem. They claim that had the President and Speaker of the Union heard me use the toxic term, “they would have gaveled him down according to parliamentary procedure because we have a no-tolerance policy for inflammatory and racist language.” How ironic to assume that I was obliged to use the evasion “the N-word” in a lecture on free speech.

Mx. George piles irony-upon-irony when they say: “I hope, in the future, we continue to foster a space of discourse: speech that pushes past our limits of thought…” My talk apparently pushed Mx. George’s limit a bit too far.

The present controversy reminds me of a comedy routine of the late comedian Lenny Bruce. He would come onto the stage, peruse the audience, and say: “I see a k**e over here. And sitting next to the k**e is a w*p who is sitting in front of a n****r. And over here I see a c***k sitting next to a s**c. What a diverse audience we see here tonight!” Bruce, who was in his own way commenting on the power of words in our society, was detoxifying these words by using them in an appropriate comedic context.

The bottom line is that the Yale Political Union should not have invited me to talk about free speech if, without warning me, it had set a limit on what I could, and could not, say.

HARVEY SILVERGLATE is a lawyer and the co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He can be reached at harvey@harveysilverglate.com.