Wednesday, September 3, 2008

* Will Harvard be facing a shakedown by Je$$e next ?

At Harvard, blacks perceive culture of prejudice

Students, faculty cite racial profiling,

By Tracy Jan Globe Staff / August 29, 2008

It was the quintessential college scene: dozens of students from the

Harvard Black Men's Forum and the Association of Black Harvard

Women picnicking on the Radcliffe Quad, playing capture-the-flag

and running relay races at their end-of-the-year field day.

But just an hour into the festivities on the sunny afternoon in May

2007, the fun screeched to a halt. Two campus police officers rode

up on motorcycles. Were they students, the officers asked. Did they

have permission to be there?

The young men and women, dressed in Harvard T-shirts, would

discover that a fellow student in a nearby dorm had mistaken them

for trespassers, according to students who were there and whose

account was confirmed by Harvard officials.

The incident, which ignited criticism from black students and faculty,

highlighted the prejudices that many black students say they continue

to face at Harvard, not only from police, but from classmates, as well.

Leaders of black student and faculty groups say they hope that

Harvard's review of campus Police Department practices will help

spark a wide-ranging conversation about the racial climate on campus

and lead to other concrete steps by the university to improve it. The

review, announced Tuesday, follows long-standing complaints of

racial profiling by police.