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Harvard roiled by race debate

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The debate over minorities and racism spilled over at Harvard Law School in November, leading to a series of community meetings, protests and a list of student demands.

Conversations about institutional racism were thrust into the national spotlight in early November, after the president of the University of Missouri resigned amid protests and boycotts over his handling of racism and bigotry. 

At Harvard Law School, minority students had asked the school to drop its seal, which is the crest of Isaac Royal, Jr. who endowed the first chair of law at Harvard. The protesters say the crest, which was adopted in 1936, endorses a slaveholding legacy. Royal, who died in 1781, was the son of a slave trader and owned slaves.

Then, on November 19, someone placed black tape over the portraits of black law professors, which hang in a law school hallway. The incident took place one day after a race rally, and was investigated, by campus police, as a hate crime.

Michele Hall, a second-year student told The Washington Post she was upset upon seeing the images.

“I also wasn’t surprised,” she said. “This is part and parcel of what is happening here at Harvard and also at other institutions across the country.”

The school held a community meeting as which, Dean Martha Minow said racism was a serious problem at the law school and that “racism exists in America and in the United States and in Harvard and in Harvard Law School,” reported the Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper.

Minow acknowledged that racism is a “serious problem” at the law school and said that “racism exists in America and in the United States and in Harvard and in Harvard Law School,” the Harvard Crimson reported.

A few weeks later, several hundred students crammed into lecture hall for another community meeting and Minow presented a series of proposals to make the school more diverse and welcoming to minority students.

These included, reconsidering use of the school’s seal, increasing faculty diversity, and hiring a staff member to focus on diversity and inclusion.

But that did not appease the protestors. 

“This was a moment for the campus to come together and discuss how Harvard Law School can deconstruct institutional racism, and we spent an hour where you spoke and we listened,” said Isaac Cameron, a second-year student. “I can’t think of a better metaphor that represents what’s wrong here on campus.”

The school then held s a third community meeting on Dec. 4, at which students presented seven demands, which include changing the seal, establishing an office devoted to issues of diversity and inclusion, requiring staff members to go through “cultural competency” training, and expanding financial aid to “improve affordability and financial access to HLS for students of color, students from low socio-economic backgrounds, and otherwise marginalized students.”

The following Monday, about 100 students protested Minow’s failure to adequately address their demands.

“One thing we’ve been getting a lot is that we haven’t given the administration enough time,” The Harvard Crimson reported Rena T. Karefa-Johnson, a third-year Law student as saying. “Students have been asking for these things for decades… We’re not going to stop.”

In an email later that day, Minow said she was committed to “building a truly diverse community.”

“Some students and staff have presented a list of demands,” Minow wrote. “We are, however, a community of many voices and hopes, and we have an obligation to provide and protect the opportunity for all to participate, speak and be heard.”

 

 

— Jack Crittenden

 

Jack Crittenden

Jack Crittenden

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