Homophobia Trumps Racism

Rick Kamdar, a senior at American University, has been expelled for calling another student a gay slur.

But there’s more to the story (reg required)…

Kamdar said the incident began when he asked a student on the quad for a light, and the student’s friend told Kamdar to “Go back to India.” Kamdar then used an anti-gay slur against the student and the two began pushing each other. The fight was quickly broken up by Public Safety.

Although Kamdar was expelled, the student who allegedly started the whole thing faces no disciplinary action whatsoever.

Kamdar is appealing the decision, hoping that he will be allowed to finish his last semester or at least have the dismissal removed from his transcript. “After three years of fighting cancer, I was only going to graduate a year late,” he said. “I would not throw [my education] away.” Kamdar said he is planning to sue the university over the hearing.

Before I go any further, I’d like to acknowledge that I couldn’t find much else about this case. So my comments are limited by what I know from this article (and if we have any readers from AU who are more familiar with this story, feel free to let me know if there are any factual errors in this post).

First, it’s never ok to use a gay slur. I don’t care what the context is — even if you’re surrounded only by straight people and you say it in jest, it’s still not ok. I’m not going to defend Kamdar’s use of it, nor am I going to defend this silly excuse of his:

“The word fag is a very common word; it doesn’t always mean gay,” Kamdar said. “Did I know he was gay? No. Apparently American University has concluded that people can look gay.”

That being said, why is he being disciplined and not the person who provoked him in the first place? Why the double standard?

And is an expulsion really necessary? If Kamdar had committed a hate crime, or had verbally harassed a gay student for no reason, then yes, I would think that an expulsion is appropriate. But this situation is a little bit more complex. And I also have to wonder: has every person who has ever used this word at AU been expelled? I assume not. If the university wants to make an example of Kamdar, fine — sentence to him community service or put him on probation. Expulsion, on the other hand, seems pretty extreme. (And yes, I would argue that if someone were to use a racial slur in a similar situation, then an expulsion wouldn’t be warranted, either.)

I’d be interested to see how this story develops. Again, feel free to let me know if you’re more familiar with this case and/or there are details that I’m unaware of.

176 thoughts on “Homophobia Trumps Racism

  1. well i think kamdar made big mistake using gay slurs he shud have used ethnic slurs and he would not have been suspened. currently in usa gay rights movement is massive and even that dude from gray’s anatomy was kicked off the show for using the F word. so sad for kamdar bcoz no employer will hire him either. his career and life is over in USA. time for the flight bak home.

  2. “Sometimes God likes to put two guys in a paper bag and just let ‘em rip.” Gavin (Ben Affleck), Changing Lanes.

  3. He should have called him “cracker,” “whitey” or “trailer trash.” The slurs would have cancelled each other out in the absurd relativist mode. He blundered by slandering homosexuals, which you simply cannot do in America. What a shame. Another life marred in a moment of idiocy.

  4. That being said, why is he being disciplined and not the person who provoked him in the first place?

    My guess is he initiated the physical violence. Just a guess.

  5. “After three years of fighting cancer

    Hang on, and why is he still smoking? may be its for medical marijuana??

  6. yes risible well said. shud have called him trailor trash or redneck or hillbilly lolzzzz

    gay slurs have zero tolerance in American Society.

  7. so sad for kamdar bcoz no employer will hire him either. his career and life is over in USA. time for the flight bak home.

    Where in the above article did it say Kamdar is not a U.S. citizen? What flight home and to where? Huh??

    As for the expulsion thing, I dunno about AU but some colleges and high schools have you sign a copy of school policies or a pledge of conduct to the effect that you understand that breaking certain rules equals expulsion. VCU has you do that under the honor code for cheating. Perhaps that’s the case?

    Anyhow, yes, of course I agree with Naina on all her points, however, speaking as a teacher, it’s very common for one party to tattle-“Well he/she said this first!” or “He was messin’ with me, etc”

    My prescription-for a similiar slur that happened in my classroom two weeks ago…

    White student was being called fag by black students. They also dissed white students’ mother, mom’s body and called her a prositute. (White student is diagnosed ED and on meds.) White student reacted by lunging at the two students messing with him, turning over chairs and said, “I’m a cut you niggas.”

    All parties had to do 100 push-ups with my foot on their back, got removed by security, got a phone call home from me, suspended for the rest of the day, and a referral to the VP. One day of in-school suspension after that plus three days of detention.

    How’s that work for ya in terms of disciplinary action?

  8. both of them need therapy. isn’t that where isiah washington and lindsey lohan are? or is that wonderland–with shopping sprees, award shows, and restaurant breaks in between? i get all confused.

  9. After three years of fighting cancer, I was only going to graduate a year late,” he said. “I would not throw [my education] away.”

    how old is this guy? he’s in the right age demographic for testicular cancer.. just curious.

  10. coach diesel whether hez on a student visa or a resident/citizen his life is over here well maybe you are right he could drive a cab. bottom line is he will not succeed in his career. plz look at what happen with Isaiah when used the word faggot at his costar. he was out of a job in a flash. what about famous baseball closer john rocker. the media destroyed his career. so tell me who is kamdar? hez over and time to seek refugee elsewhere.

  11. All parties had to do 100 push-ups with my foot on their back, got removed by security, got a phone call home from me, suspended for the rest of the day, and a referral to the VP. One day of in-school suspension after that plus three days of detention. How’s that work for ya in terms of disciplinary action?

    Coach Diesel, you are the ultimate. Damn.

  12. Incidents of slur-throwing are pretty common on college campuses, and if someone reports it to authorities then there’s usually a disciplinary hearing + suspension. But if there’s assault, it becomes a police matter, AFAIK – that was the case with the Guilford College football players who beat up and racially abused Palestinian students recently. It’s not clear from the extract above if Kamdar is being charged with hate speech or assault or both.

    Much as we may abhor gay slurs, it’s really quite common for American boys (I use the word advisedly) to use it among themselves, even jokingly. Even on an uber-PC campus I can’t say I remember a slur leading to someone being expelled. But things may have changed in the last ten years.

    “Fagging” was also used in British public schools to refer to the practice of younger boys doing chores for older boys, like lighting their fires.

  13. gay slurs have zero tolerance in American Society.

    This sentiment needs to be modified — gay slurs have zero tolerance at America’s overzealously politically correct, self-rightous, speech censoring universities. Those bastions of “enlightenment” have a history of going overboard with their flavor-of-the-month brand of social consciousness. Right now, dissing south asians who are taking away jobs from “real americans” is the cause du jour of the Lou Dobbs crowd, so it doesn’t surprise me that there were no consequences for the other student’s remarks.

    Xenophobia in America…don’t call it a come back.

  14. Stupid on so many levels…

    even that dude from gray’s anatomy was kicked off the show for using the F word

    Isaiah Washington was not kicked off the show for calling the other guy faggot. He is supposedly in ‘rehab’ for his actions.

  15. ” He should have called him “cracker,” “whitey” or “trailer trash.” “

    ” yes risible well said. shud have called him trailor trash or redneck or hillbilly lolzzzz “

    Huh? Where in the post or in the linked story is the race of the other person identified? Where are the warnings by the trigger-happy bloggers? This is not the the first time I have pointed out how on this blog calling White people all kinds of names doesn’t register a blip on the administrators’ uber-sensitive souls.

  16. Sorry Ennis. ED is emotionally disturbed. We mainstream our kids so that special ed, general ed and IB all have PE/health classes together. I forget that these abreviations are mostly teacher or MD used.

  17. Those bastions of “enlightenment” have a history of going overboard with their flavor-of-the-month brand of social consciousness.

    Agree!

    Jeet that’s the spin they are putting on the story to downplay it. He will never return to the show.

  18. Huh? Where in the post or in the linked story is the race of the other person identified? Where are the warnings by the trigger-happy bloggers? This is not the the first time I have pointed out how on this blog calling White people all kinds of names doesn’t register a blip on the administrators’ uber-sensitive souls.

    jilted my point was he shud have replied in a similar manner. if someone tells u go back to mexico how will u respond? no am not saying i know u are from mexico. am just trying to give an example plz dont be so sensitive. i have read up and down this site where ppl say similar things about other races so plz control urself.

  19. I don’t think calling anyone by a racial or homophobic slur should play in society. For those of us that are queer and brown, it is a little dispiriting to read snarky comments about how it’s okay to make racial slurs but not gay ones in “politically correct campuses” ( and don’t get me started on how the term “politically correct” was retooled by the Right anyway). Both students were idiots for going there and then to let it descend into pushing and shoving was even dumber. Finally, yes I know that “fag” is another term for cigarettes but I don’t think that Kamdar meant to insult the dude by calling him a “cigarette”. Unless by that he meant “flaming”. And then he’s back to Square One of Stupidity. He’s been in the States long enough to know better.

  20. Let’s say everything else being the same, the other guy was identified as Black. Would you then have dared wished out loud in your comment that Mr Kamdar should have used the n word? I don’t think so. And even if you did you would have summarily been banned. On the other hand if the other guy was indeed known to be White, yours and Risible’s wouldn’t have been the only comments badmouthing Whites. Subsequently, only moralizing warnings would have been issued.

  21. well if the other dude was identified as being black i wud have said kamdar shud have replied – go back to africa or go swing in trees wid ur brothers lolzzz. my point is kamdar got insulted and even i have been told this many times but i never take it seriously i just reply in similar manner. not that i necessarily mean it but it justifies itself in that situation. kamdar wanted to hurt him bak but unfortunately he dissed him about being gay instead of demoralising his race.

    i think u are saying on this site white bashing is tolerated but such comments on other races are strictly prohibited??? well i have read many a post making fun of indians. let me find the one i read yesterday so i can show it to u. hang on.

  22. expelling using slurs as a rationale is maoist (fighting is a different thing). there are a few slurs, like the n-word, which have deep salience, but we might as well become deaf mutes at the rate this is going. everyone is such a over-sensitive pu**sy. oops 🙂

  23. Jilted,

    My point was not to insult European-Americans (some of whom are hard-working and articulate) but rather to suggest that the social costs of using an anti-white racial slur are substantially less than victimizing homosexuals on campus (Umang put it better than I). That I am a bedfellow with a guy who employs the term lozzz in this “controversy” is not my problem. If the racialist perpetrator does turn out to be non-white, I promise to “render” myself to a Department of Homeland Security-approved “unlearning” facility.

  24. Jilted:

    I don’t like the word and I don’t use it- but if you must write out ‘the n word’ just say nigger. You are giving the word more power than it actually has. In no other circumstances would I commend gansta rappers or other ‘entertainers’ use of it— However their co-opting the word /the passage of time has taken away sting. It can never effect me as much as it did any person who came before me . I’m not saying you won’t be in for an a** kicking if you use it in the wrong time or place , or that people may not come to the wrong conclusions about your politics – but that’s life.

    You have a valid point about hypocrisy- stand by it.

  25. My point was not to insult European-Americans (some of whom are hard-working and articulate)

    heh, heh, heh

  26. Hmmmmm, I wonder what the real story is?

    that is the meta-story. a lot of these tales about slurs & racism & homophobia, etc., turn out to be righteous clouds people try to throw up to obscure situational conflicts which are much more prosaic.

  27. For those of you whining about being told to “go back to India,” i want to ask what the connection is between that comment and the risk of violence on an American university campus? As opposed to, say, being called gay or a fag, which very often is the first step towards a violent attack — for instance several Yalies, of all privileged white and non-white young people, get beaten up — one’s jaw was broken — in San Fran about a month back.

    Please don’t justify harassment just because you might not be able to relate to it personally. South Asian American privilege is real, as is racism; gay bashing is real, and gayness confers no automatic community, little power, and no safety.

  28. well bottom line is indians always take the worst of it and yes indians are tolerant lot but there comes a time when u got to stand up to these racist bastards. i see them everyday and listen to their “smart” comments well its time to take the gloves off.

  29. apologies, razib 🙂

    I am boringly literal. The meta-story depends somewhat on the actual facts of the case, doesn’t it?

    1. How physical did it get? Was there a fight and what did the fight consist of?
    2. Who witnessed the event, what did they say, and who were these witnesses?
    3. Have any of these people been reprimanded for anything similar before?
    4. Was anyone involved already on academic probabation, or something like that?
    5. Has anyone been expelled before for saying things against a speech code?
    6. How do we know the veracity of any of these claims, how was this brought up, who took the information, and how was it reviewed? By a committee, board, etc? Was it open to the public? Closed? Etc, etc, etc.

    Okay, it’s not a complete list, but I am curious.

  30. well also consider they just issued a warning and did not expelled kamdar then what? well there will be ppl shouting from the gay movement and trust me they wud have been shouting 100 times louder. i think the school considered expelling and warning and realized they dont want to get on the wrong side of the gay movement. a decison made wid self interest in mind.

  31. That’s ridiculous. In economic and political terms, you’re far better off as a white, middle class gay person that you are as a South Asian.

    maybe…but at least your parents won’t disown you for being south asian.

  32. it doesnt matter if u are middle class or low class as long as u are WHITE u are BETTER OFF in USA

  33. …but rather to suggest that the social costs of using an anti-white racial slur are substantially less than victimizing homosexuals on campus (Umang put it better than I).

    Absolutely, there’s no continent called Gay-frica where gays were brought by thousands to exist as property of heterosexuals. As for “Who has it better?” it’s really not an equivalent comparison in my book, because each group is identified in an absolutely different manner.

    I won’t say “Gays choose to be gay” or anything like that, but fact is, they are identified by more sophisticated means apart from visual. Dress, mannerism, gait, speech. Essentially, they’re identified by behavior. I concede that behavior could indeed be innate, but it’s still behavior none the less, and it’s not a trivial difference to what people of certain races experience.

    (And even sometimes that behavior is more of a caricature than reality, I’ve met a few gay people – after someone else told me they were gay, I don’t really have what some people call “gaydar”)

    But everyone has “blackdar” or “browndar”

  34. well bottom line is indians always take the worst of it

    that’s disgusting. try being black. i’m not a liberal on race, but i try to keep a sense of perspective. some people should go back to india (here’s lookin’ at you bidi, what are you waiting for?).

  35. razib itz ppl like u that spoil a beautiful country

    hope i spoil it enough so that people like will leave and go back to where you can parade your ethnic narcissism with no regrets.

  36. well u can try all u wish but u cannot scare anyone my dear friend. and plz dont try to hide ur hate itz obvious here.

  37. Kamdar said the incident began when he asked a student on the quad for a light, and the student’s friend told Kamdar to “Go back to India.” Kamdar then used an anti-gay slur against the student and the two began pushing each other.

    if kamdar said “the two began pushing each other” then he probably threw the 1st punch or push, otherwise he would have said the other kid started it. and that’s probably what really got him in trouble.

    in the world of classic liberal jurisprudence, this would be the critical point, though it’s unclear whether AU is part of this world. however, “fighting words” are recognized in common law as an initiation of violence, and a punch in retaliation could be self-defense, as long as the defender reasonably believed an assault was imminent.

  38. let me be explicit, when members of one of the wealthiest ethnic groups in america try and contend that they lay at the pinnacle of oppression or suffering in this country i want to barf. i’m brown, and i’ve lived in predominantly white areas of the USA for all my life. it isn’t a picnic, but life is often a sequence of disappointments for humans, in general. there are quantitative and measurable differences in quality of life between various groups. a friend of mine once pointed out to a black man that he “got profiled when boarding airplanes.” perspective people. a black man isn’t just profiled when boarding airplanes, he is profiled constantly in his day to day life. if you can afford to fly, that indicates some level of privilege.

    injustice exists. hopefully perspective will too.

  39. and plz dont try to hide ur hate itz obvious here.

    i won’t hide it. i hate people like you. at least from the small slice of narcissism you put on display here.