In response to allegations of racial profiling resulting from an August incident, Harvard launched an investigation late last month into its campus police force.
Amid criticism that Harvard University Police Department officers were targeting black students and professors, President Drew Gilpin Faust convened a six-person committee in order to review the department's "diversity training, community outreach, and recruitment efforts," according to a letter Faust issued publicly on Aug. 26.
The incident in question involved a black high school student who was attempting to remove a lock from a bicycle on the night of Aug. 8, when HUPD officers responding to a call confronted him. An exchange "laced with obscenities" ensued, according to an account in the Harvard Crimson, the school's daily newspaper. According to Faust's letter, the individual was a Harvard employee for the summer, who was trying to remove a lock from his bicycle because the key had broken off.
"There have been so many incidents like this in recent history," said Timothy Turner, president of the Harvard Black Students Association and a member of the Black Men's Forum, "but (this case) was probably the last straw." Still, the senior said, "I don't think the HUPD are actively targeting black students. It's more an issue of updating their policies."
In an e-mailed statement, the university said the police department's internal review was "obviously confidential in nature." The school declined to answer any further questions for this article.
The incident was one of a number of recent racially tinged confrontations between members of the Harvard community and its police force. According to an Aug. 27 article in the Boston Globe, HUPD officers, after receiving calls from various Harvard students, interrupted a field day event in 2007 hosted by two black student groups and questioned their presence - despite the groups' permits to host the event. In 2004, campus police also stopped a prominent black professor in the middle of the Quad, having mistaken him for a robbery suspect, according to the same article.
But Harvard is not the only Ivy that has recently had to address criticisms of the conduct of its campus police. In 2006, Brown's Department of Public Safety and the Providence Police Department were accused of police brutality after an incident in which Chipalo Street '06 GS was asked to present his ID and was arrested when he allegedly assaulted a police officer. In 2002, similar outcries arose from an incident in which police arrested two black students after a heated exchange and a scuffle.
Among students, such accusations have generated skepticism of DPS conduct, but also of the accusations themselves.
"There are two sides to every story," said Quentin Youmans '09, of the 2006 incident at Brown.
"I think at Brown, (people) try to be cognizant" of racial profiling, said Youmans, a South Carolina native. "Where I'm from, they don't care so much."
Chief of Police and Director of Public Safety Mark Porter said DPS has collaborated with various student groups since 2006 to focus on issues like race relations. "Right now we have a very strong and proactive community policing approach," he said.
Porter, who is black, also said there were ongoing student-officer dialogue sessions, two of which are slated for later this semester.
Associate Provost and Director of Institutional Diversity Brenda Allen added that officers have participated in diversity training workshops - one of which focused exclusively on racial profiling - and discussions concerning diversity.
"If you want to try to build bridges across cultures, literature shows you very clearly that it's really about contact - finding ways to come into contact with people around common issues," Allen said.
While Youmans applauded the University's recent efforts to have better dialogue about race issues, he emphasized there are always improvements to be made.
"I think a college campus can never do too much to try to build healthy race relations," Youmans said. "You'll never have everybody feel that they've been treated fairly," he added.
