Susan Rieger heads Columbia University's Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, and she has a tough case with Randy Raghavendra. He's an analyst at Columbia's Office of Institutional Real Estate who got passed over for a promotion. The spot went to a younger white woman. Raghavendra, who's a dark-skinned Indian American, accused that "Columbia practices blatant racial discrimination and various deceptive tactics to keep out blacks and other dark-skinned minorities from higher-paying managerial and executive positions of power."

2. An administrator at the university once asked Raghavendra, "Do you often get hassled at airport security?" The suggestion, according to Raghavendra, was that he looked like a potential terrorist. The administrator didn't deny the comment but affirmed that the idea that it was racist was "bizarre" and "silly beyond belief."

Who gets to decide whether a comment is racist?

How is the decision made?

Does or doesn't this conflict resemble the one you see on MTV videos where blacks openly refer to each other with a specific term that would earn a white person who used the word a lifetime ban from the channel?