Ms. Dinah PoKempner is a human rights lawyer, an expert on the international law of free expression, and a former General Counsel of Human Rights Watch and adjunct professor in Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights.
In April 2021, in a zoom-lecture for a class on hate speech and freedom of expression, Ms. PoKempner recounted an anecdote involving a deposition of a Ku Klux Klan member she had witnessed, in which a lawyer used the “N-word” repeatedly to successfully bait and thus expose his deponent’s racist motive. She quoted the dialogue directly, to help students understand the complexities and moral ambiguities in the legal treatment of hate speech. Some students protested, arguing that the repeated quoting of the slur was insensitive and hurtful to them. They filed a discrimination complaint, although Ms. PoKempner acknowledged their objections in class and repeatedly apologized for any sensibilities she may have unintentionally hurt, while trying to explore with students how one might teach this important subject.
After speaking with a university lawyer, students ultimately abandoned the discrimination complaint and the university did not pursue it. When Ms. PoKempner asked for mediation or assistance in resolving the matter with students who felt aggrieved, the university replied it had no such services to offer. Ms. PoKempner also asked whether faculty were apprised of the content of DEI orientation that students cited in her class, allegedly forbidding the use of slurs in any context, and she was told that they were not.
Columbia failed to investigate who violated its policy on professors’ private recordings of lectures by leaking this one to the press, and over Ms. PoKempner’s objection, shared her recording with her primary employer. Human Rights Watch, which was at this time pursuing a management reorganization, used the opportunity of a public controversy to dismiss her.
While the discrimination complaint was pending, Columbia relieved Ms. PoKempner of grading responsibility against the objection of some students, and in an email to the entire university community intimated she was blameworthy, causing many to believe she had been fired. Despite the complaint being abandoned, Columbia repeatedly refused to renew her contract. She subsequently became a senior advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.
For her courage to teach historical and legal material despite severe consequences, the Columbia Academic Freedom Council is honored to present Ms. Dinah PoKempner with the 2025 Academic Freedom Award.
