“because it made me feel bad” is all the current cupcakes need to freak out..... although I admit that I would never try this prof’s little “experiment” in class with speaking the “N-word”..... I think the outcome was predictable. Some people just could not handle discussion of the term, even though it peppers rap and hip hop songs all the time. They don’t demand that the rappers all be banned, but they demand that a professor be banned for trying to have an academic discussion.
Still, one would hope that people could make the distinction between “using” an offensive term against specific person(s) versus trying to have an academic discussion of what the word is, how it is significant, etc. Obviously, Ivy League cupcakes at Princeton cannot have such a discussion.
This had nothing to do with free speech, it had to do with control. The N-word has no hidden meaning, it's just that white people aren't allowed to use it. If Rosen had been black, this would have been a non-issue.