Randall LeRoy Kennedy (born September 10, 1954) is an American legal scholar. He is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard University and his research focuses on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions in American life. He specializes in contracts, freedom of expression, race relations law, civil rights legislation, and the Supreme Court.[1]
Kennedy has written seven books: Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption; Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word; Race, Crime, and the Law; Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal; The Persistence of the Color Line; For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law; and Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture. Kennedy has also published several collections of shorter works.
In 1984 Kennedy joined the faculty at Harvard Law School, teaching courses on race, law, and freedom of expression. He first came to prominence as a legal-academic scholar when he began addressing affirmative action. In 1997, Kennedy published Race, Crime, and the Law, which received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1998. "This book is a brave, honest, forceful intervention in that debate", wrote William A. Galston and David Wasserman in the Wilson Quarterly, adding, "With restrained passion, he documents the myriad ways in which our legal system has betrayed the principle of fair and equal treatment for African Americans." Kennedy argues in the book that African Americans have suffered at the hands of the criminal justice system, but also claims that blacks have committed a "notably large proportion" of the crimes that people are most afraid of (robbery, rape, murder, aggravated assault). He likewise argues that the need to protect black communities from crime has often been neglected. Galston and Wasserman wrote, "Too often, says Kennedy, black leaders show more concern for black perpetrators of crime than for their black victims."[8]
Kennedy is known as unafraid to tackle socially difficult issues, such as racism. He has written for academic and popular journals, published several books, and served on the editorial boards of the magazines American Prospect and The Nation. Kennedy has written extensively on interracial marriages and adoptions, and on the relationship between race and crime. His views have garnered acclaim and controversy. "One of the things they [critics] find disconcerting is that I ask questions", Kennedy told Lawrence Donegan in the London Observer. "I actually question the premise of my own thinking and push my own conclusions hard. I thought that was what intellectuals were supposed to do." Despite the firestorm created by Kennedy's published work, Donegan said that Kennedy's "colleagues variously describe him as brilliant, well-read and personable."[9]
Kennedy is a staunch defender of freedom of speech, stating "a speech-protective culture—a culture that defends even ugly expression—benefits minority communities, that depend upon protest to make their presence and their preferences seen and heard."
In 2002, controversy erupted when Kennedy published Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. "The power of 'Nigger,'" Charles Taylor wrote in Salon, "is that Kennedy writes fully of the word, neither condemning its every use nor fantasizing that it can ever become solely a means of empowerment."[10] In the book, Kennedy explores the word's history, and how its meaning varies according to the context of its use. "I'm not saying that any particular instance of using the N-word is any more horrifying and menacing than any other such word", he told Daniel Smith in The Atlantic. "I am saying that from a broad sociological view, the word is associated with more havoc in American society than other racial slurs."[11]
In Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption (2003), Kennedy attempts to bring greater understanding to the racial issues that continue to trouble American society. "His premise is based on common sense", wrote Emily Bernard in Black Issues Book Review.[12] "Until Americans confront racial bias in the most intimate arenas of their lives, we will continue to live with racism and its consequences." Unlike many black intellectuals, Kennedy supports interracial adoption. "Parenting is a mysterious thing", he told Lise Funderburg in Essence. "People will learn what they need to learn in order to help their child along. I'm willing to assume that with respect to all parents, including White people who want to adopt Black kids."[13] Kennedy explores interracial marriages throughout American history as well as their presence in literature and film. "There is something hopeful in Kennedy's historical accounts", Bernard writes. "In spite of the law ... some individuals managed to maintain honorable and nuanced relationships with people they were legally forbidden to approach as equals."[14]
Kennedy's views have been controversial even among other black intellectuals. Darcus Howe noted of Nigger in New Statesman, "Had a white person used the word, rejection would have been immediate. Now white society can always point to Kennedy and say that a negro advanced the view that 'nigger' is acceptable."[15] Many black scholars have called his work conservative,[citation needed] and worry that books like Race, Crime, and the Law provide political cover for white conservatives.[clarification needed] "Over the years", wrote Derrick Bell, "Professor Kennedy has become the impartial, black intellectual, commenting on our still benighted condition and as ready to criticize as commend."[16] When asked by Kate Tuttle of Africana how he felt about the controversy over Nigger, Kennedy replied: "What's the worst that happens? That someone writes a very long diatribe in The New Yorker excoriating me...I'm not facing firing squads, I'm not facing exile, I'm not facing jail."[17]
Kennedy is a strong critic of the US Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder, writing that it was "the most unjustifiable and hurtful decision imposed upon black America during the past half century...that cripple[d] legislation for which proponents of racial justice marched, bled, and in some instances died."[18]
Kennedy has criticized the prison abolition and defund the police movements, stating that "It is true that far too many people are imprisoned in the US, that the process by which people are incarcerated is shot through with unfairness, than an appreciable number of prisoners are wrongly convicted, and that cruel, inhumane, and dangerous conditions are far too prevalent in American prisons. America is disgraced by the barbarity, the hyper-punitiveness, and the obvious inequities in its system of criminal justice. But it is not improper for a society to protect itself from individuals who rape, murder, assault, or rob others in violation of laws that set boundaries that, if crossed, make one vulnerable to imprisonment."[19] Kennedy opposes the death penalty.[20]
In March 2021, Kennedy participated in a debate hosted by Intelligence Squared US on the issue of slavery reparations, taking the position that he is "not an enemy of reparations, but has deep concerns about it". He said his principal objections were the waste of important time and energy on a "futile movement", administrative difficulties associated with reparations, that they poorly target those who are presently in need, and that reparations will likely have unintended consequences.[21]
Current activities
Through numerous appearances on the lecture circuit, Kennedy continues to promote debate on hot-button racial issues in the public arena. "If you are socially isolated", he told Regan Goode in The New York Times, "you are more vulnerable to stereotypes and myths, you won't have the opportunity to have conversations with someone who has a different social background than you."[22] While many critics have attempted to use Kennedy's work to advance their own agendas, he has retained his academic independence. "Against black pessimists", wrote Galston and Wasserman, "[Kennedy] argues that substantial progress has been made toward the ideal of color-blind justice. Against complacent whites, he argues that there is still a long way to go."[8] According to Kennedy noted, the relationship between white and black America remains one of America's most perplexing problems. "Obviously there are all sorts of ethnic, racial conflicts in American society", Kennedy told Smith, "but there's one that is deeper than all the others and that's white/black racial conflict."[23]
Kennedy served as a trustee of Princeton University from 1994 to 1998 and from 2005 to 2015.[24] He also serves on the Board of Directors at The National Coalition Against Censorship.[25]
In May 2023, Kennedy gave a long form interview on the Lex Fridman podcast entitled ‘The N-Word - History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power’.
Personal life
In 1986, Kennedy married Yvedt Matory, a cancer surgeon. They have three children. Matory died on April 15, 2005, of complications from melanoma.[26]
