UConn Law Professor Asked To Take Leave
By GRACE E. MERRITT Courant Staff Writer
10:22 AM EDT, October 4, 2007
A colorful University of Connecticut law professor has been asked to take a leave of absence for showing a film clip of a thong-clad woman dancing suggestively and for also raising provocative questions about slavery during a class.The situation pits academic freedom against efforts to foster an inclusive, welcoming campus.Robert L. Birmingham, known as a provocative lecturer and iconoclastic thinker, agreed to leave for the rest of the semester after he showed a clip from a film called “Really, Really Pimpin’ in Da South” during class on Sept. 21, said law school Dean Jeremy Paul.
The film features an interview with a pimp who was convicted in a court case called U.S. v. Pipkins that the class was studying in Birmingham’s “Remedies” course. At the end of the tape, the camera switches from the pimp to “scantily clad women in a sexually suggestive pose,” Paul said. At that point, Birmingham pressed the button to freeze the film, upsetting some students.Later that day, students in Birmingham’s class on the Nuremberg trials asked to see the same film. Birmingham obliged and stopped the film at the same point again, Paul said.Before showing the film clip in the “Remedies” class, Birmingham reportedly posed the question of whether African Americans had it better as slaves in the U.S. than their counterparts in West Africa, Paul said. Others in the class offered a slightly different version of the issue, claiming that Birmingham asked whether the descendants of slaves today are better off than their contemporaries in West Africa.After word about the film ballooned into a campuswide issue, Paul said he sensed that the Hartford-based school needed a cooling-off period. So he asked Birmingham to consider taking the leave and asked him to apologize to the class. Paul then held a forum Sept. 24 for students to air their views and to ask questions. Paul said he was investigating the incident further.”As you can imagine, we want a law school where people are free to express their ideas,” Paul said. “But we also want a place where each student, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, feels safe and welcome. I am trying really, really hard to balance those two things as best I can.”The school, which has worked to improve racial diversity in the student body, is particularly sensitive to these kinds of issues after some students last year attended an off-campus “Bullets and Bubbly” party that offended some students and staff, and attracted unwanted media attention.Photos from the party posted on the popular Facebook.com social networking site depicted mostly white law school students dressed in baggy jeans, puffy jackets and sideways baseball caps, some holding machine guns and 40-ounce malt liquors. Some photos had captions from rap lyrics.Birmingham could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but his lawyer, Heather Kaufmann, said today that he was simply showing an interview with the pimp and did not intentionally air the dancer scene.”We believe it is in the best interest of the university not to escalate the situation and would like only to say that Professor Birmingham showed a relevant interview in class,” Kaufmann said. “He stopped the film at the completion of the interview. Period. The suggestion that the questionable material was shown intentionally is both troubling and dishonest.”Kaufman said the interview overlapped a couple of seconds onto the dancer scene.”A couple of seconds of delay and run-over is what this is about and it is so unfortunate. The suggestion that it was somehow intentional is just absurd,” Kaufmann said.Paul and students said some were not offended by the incident and others are upset about the leave.One student, who declined to be identified and was in the “Remedies” class, said the administration’s reaction undercuts the idea of academic freedom and First Amendment rights.A UConn law professor since 1971, Birmingham evokes strong views from many admirers and some detractors on campus for his teaching style.”He makes a provocative statement and asks, “How do you feel about that?’” the student said. “He teaches us to think about the law and why we might be offended.”
By GRACE E. MERRITT Courant Staff Writer
10:22 AM EDT, October 4, 2007
A colorful University of Connecticut law professor has been asked to take a leave of absence for showing a film clip of a thong-clad woman dancing suggestively and for also raising provocative questions about slavery during a class.The situation pits academic freedom against efforts to foster an inclusive, welcoming campus.Robert L. Birmingham, known as a provocative lecturer and iconoclastic thinker, agreed to leave for the rest of the semester after he showed a clip from a film called “Really, Really Pimpin’ in Da South” during class on Sept. 21, said law school Dean Jeremy Paul.
The film features an interview with a pimp who was convicted in a court case called U.S. v. Pipkins that the class was studying in Birmingham’s “Remedies” course. At the end of the tape, the camera switches from the pimp to “scantily clad women in a sexually suggestive pose,” Paul said. At that point, Birmingham pressed the button to freeze the film, upsetting some students.Later that day, students in Birmingham’s class on the Nuremberg trials asked to see the same film. Birmingham obliged and stopped the film at the same point again, Paul said.Before showing the film clip in the “Remedies” class, Birmingham reportedly posed the question of whether African Americans had it better as slaves in the U.S. than their counterparts in West Africa, Paul said. Others in the class offered a slightly different version of the issue, claiming that Birmingham asked whether the descendants of slaves today are better off than their contemporaries in West Africa.After word about the film ballooned into a campuswide issue, Paul said he sensed that the Hartford-based school needed a cooling-off period. So he asked Birmingham to consider taking the leave and asked him to apologize to the class. Paul then held a forum Sept. 24 for students to air their views and to ask questions. Paul said he was investigating the incident further.”As you can imagine, we want a law school where people are free to express their ideas,” Paul said. “But we also want a place where each student, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, feels safe and welcome. I am trying really, really hard to balance those two things as best I can.”The school, which has worked to improve racial diversity in the student body, is particularly sensitive to these kinds of issues after some students last year attended an off-campus “Bullets and Bubbly” party that offended some students and staff, and attracted unwanted media attention.Photos from the party posted on the popular Facebook.com social networking site depicted mostly white law school students dressed in baggy jeans, puffy jackets and sideways baseball caps, some holding machine guns and 40-ounce malt liquors. Some photos had captions from rap lyrics.Birmingham could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but his lawyer, Heather Kaufmann, said today that he was simply showing an interview with the pimp and did not intentionally air the dancer scene.”We believe it is in the best interest of the university not to escalate the situation and would like only to say that Professor Birmingham showed a relevant interview in class,” Kaufmann said. “He stopped the film at the completion of the interview. Period. The suggestion that the questionable material was shown intentionally is both troubling and dishonest.”Kaufman said the interview overlapped a couple of seconds onto the dancer scene.”A couple of seconds of delay and run-over is what this is about and it is so unfortunate. The suggestion that it was somehow intentional is just absurd,” Kaufmann said.Paul and students said some were not offended by the incident and others are upset about the leave.One student, who declined to be identified and was in the “Remedies” class, said the administration’s reaction undercuts the idea of academic freedom and First Amendment rights.A UConn law professor since 1971, Birmingham evokes strong views from many admirers and some detractors on campus for his teaching style.”He makes a provocative statement and asks, “How do you feel about that?’” the student said. “He teaches us to think about the law and why we might be offended.”
