After University of Pennsylvania undergraduate Gregory Pavlik wrote a column in the Daily Pennsylvanian critical of affirmative action, he was told he would be investigated for racial harassment by the university's Judicial Inquiry Office. When told that charges would be dropped if he agreed to a meeting with the group of students who had accused him, he refused. In protest, a group of black students stole and destroyed a press run of the newspaper. They reiterated their racial harassment charge, and defended their own actions as an example of free expression.

Faced with First Amendment constraints, the university agreed not to prosecute Pavlik. In fact, the only people punished in the incident were the police who arrested the students who destroyed the papers. One officer was suspended, and a follow-up report by the university recommended that the campus police begin keeping race and sex information on their detainees, "to determine if [arrest policy] has an adverse impact on any groups and if the policy is applied in a consistent, non-discriminatory manner."

†