An infamous event at the University of Pennsylvania was the racially charged Water Buffalo Incident. In 1993, student Eden Jacobowitz was charged with violating Penn's racial harassment policy. He had shouted "Shut up you water buffalo" out his window to a crowd of mostly black Delta Sigma Theta sorority sisters creating a ruckus outside his dorm. Others had shouted at the crowd, including several who shouted racial epithets, but Jacobowitz would be the only one charged. The University of Pennsylvania (Penn is the moniker used by the university itself [2]) is a private, nonsectarian research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ... Binomial name Bubalus bubalis (Kerr, 1792) The Water Buffalo is a very large ungulate and a member of the bovine subfamily. ... Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (ΔΣΘ) is a non-profit Greek letter organization of college educated women committed to constructive development of its members and to public service with a primary focus on the Black community. ... While the term fraternity can be used to describe any number of social organizations, including the Lions Club and the Shriners, fraternities and sororities are most commonly known as social organizations of higher education students in the United States and Canada but there are fraternities in the whole world (for...

Initially Jacobowitz had an advisor assigned to him, who urged him to accept the University's offer of a settlement. The settlement required him to admit to violating the racial harassment policy. He refused and retained another advisor, history professor Alan Kors. President George W. Bush and Laura Bush stand with 2005 National Humanities Medal recipient Alan Kors. ...

Jacobowitz explained his choice of "water buffalo" as from Hebrew slang, "Behema," used by Jews to refer to a loud, rowdy person. He procured several expert witnesses who attested to this and others, such as Michael Meyers, who gave testimonies that "water buffalo" was not a racial epithet against African-Americans. Behemoth and Leviathan, an engraving by William Blake For other uses, see Behemoth (disambiguation). ...

A series of events brought race relations on Penn's campus to the media's attention. "In a separate incident later that year, 14,000 copies of The Daily Pennsylvanian were stolen off the racks" [1] by "self-described 'members of the black community,' who, angered by the views of controversial and conservative columnist Gregory Pavlik, had intercepted the paper that contained his final column of the semester," claiming that his views were racist. [2] No students were charged. The lack of response by the University to these events, and the noncommittal response by President Sheldon Hackney, were noticed by various journalists. Sheldon Hackney is Boies Professor of United States History and chairman of the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. ...

Jacobowitz's story was brought to the fore by the media focus on Penn and on April 23, several days before his hearing, the New York-based Jewish Daily Forward broke his story with the headline "PENNSYLVANIA PREPARING TO BUFFALO A YESHIVA BOY." After the Wall Street Journal picked up the story with an editorial entitled "Buffaloed at Penn," it caught fire. Jacobowitz was interviewed on television several times. The Forward is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York. ... Yeshiva or yeshivah (Hebrew: ישיבה pl. ... The Wall Street Journal is an influential international daily newspaper published in New York City, New York with an average daily circulation of 1,800,607 (2002). ...

Based on testimony that Jacobowitz had called the women "water buffalo" and the university's belief that this was a racial epithet, they proceeded with prosecuting him. On May 13, 1993, news anchor John Chancellor had the following commentary: Chancellor (left), with David Brinkley, in a 1976 ad for the NBC Radio network. ...

"Eden Jacobowitz is a student at the University of Pennsylvania. His studies were interrupted by a noisy crowd of students, many black and female. He yelled out his window, "Shut up, you water buffalo." He is now charged with racial harassment under the university's Code of Conduct. The school offered to dismiss the charge if he would apologize, attend a racial sensitivity seminar, agree to dormitory probation, and accept a temporary mark on his record which would brand him as guilty. He was told the term "water buffalo" could be interpreted as racist because a water buffalo is a dark primitive animal that lives in Africa. That is questionable semantics, dubious zoology, and incorrect geography. Water buffalo live in Asia, not in Africa. This from the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Jacobowitz is fighting back. The rest of us, however, are still in trouble. The language police are at work on the campuses of our better schools. The word cops are marching under the banner of political correctness. The culture of victimization is hunting for quarry. American English is in danger of losing its muscle and energy. That's what these bozos are doing to us."

[3] [4]

Despite the public outcry and widespread media coverage, the University refused to discuss or explain its actions. The hearing was delayed for another two months while international press commented and criticized Penn's decisions. Even Garry Trudeau devoted a Sunday's Doonesbury to the Water Buffalo Incident. Garry Trudeau Garretson Beekman Trudeau (born July 21, 1948) is an American cartoonist. ...

Even with repeated requests by Jacobowitz's legal teams to have charges dropped, the University pressed forward. The University's actions during the hearing would later come under some fire when it was revealed that they knowingly charged him with saying racial epithets that the university police investigation had absolved him of. At the hearing the panel decided not to dismiss the charges and issued a gag order to keep proceedings from leaking to the press.

After intense scrutiny by reporters, the University denied issuing a gag order, and Hackney offered Kors a deal in which Jacobowitz would apologize for rudeness and the University and the plaintiffs would drop the charges. The affair ended when at a press conference the 15 women agreed to drop charges, stating that the media coverage made it unlikely they would get a fair hearing. The University stated there were no charges pending. A gag order is an order, sometimes a legal order by a court or government, other times a private order by an employer or other institution, restricting information or comment from being made public. ...

References

• The water buffalo incident through eyes of Jacobowitz Daily Pennsylvanian, 4/15/2003
• GUEST COLUMNIST: Kors: Penn, Hackney mishandled 'water buffalo' case Daily Pennsylvanian, 12/7/1998
• Sheldon Hackney's Spring From Hell Pennsylvania Gazette May/June 2003
• Book excerpt from The Shadow University