An Emory Law School professor is drawing fire from students and legal peers alike for his use of the “N-word” during a lesson with students during a first-year torts class.

Dean James Hughes Jr. stripped the instructor, Paul Zwier, of his class assignments pending an investigation following the incident. Zwier also released a three-page letter explaining how he came to apparently use the slur when discussing a 1967 case involving a black man who sued after being denied service at a Texas restaurant by a manager who “shouted that he, a Negro, could not be served in the club.”