This Morning At Harvard Law School We Woke Up To A Hate Crime

sea manup said:

 
vandalism is the destruction or damage of property

tape on glass would not be considered destruction or damage 

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Don Adidada said:

 

sea manup said:

 
vandalism is the destruction or damage of property

tape on glass would not be considered destruction or damage 

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Not necessarily. Because it is not permanently damaged, doesn't mean it's not vandalism.

Spray paint can be easily removed...and even if it's not the brick/concrete doesn't lose its function or become structurally unsound with the spray paint. Yet spray painting is still an act of vandalism.

In this case, the tape can be removed but there would certainly be marks left on the glass from the residue. The school would have to pay to replace the glass or have someone clean the glass.

Either way its a loss of resources. If they buy the glass or a whole new frame that costs money, if they just clean the glass that's a janitor who has to be allocated to an extra task.

It seems like a small act but the symbolism is certainly strong. Reputable schools take this kind of stuff seriously...and any major organization would be pissed off that they have to spend more money on something that otherwise wouldn't have cost them anything else.

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swendro88 said:

My thoughts are every time I see one of your threads I ask "Is this the one where he doesn't just post a story and ask for our thoughts."

And then it's not.

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Hand2HandKing said:

as opposed to doing what?

giving my "racist and bigoted" opinion in the OP?

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[h1]  Harvard Law has ‘serious’ racism problem, dean says after black professors’ portraits defaced[/h1]

Portraits of Harvard Law School professors line the walls of Wasserstein Hall. But on Thursday morning, black tape covered the faces of African American professors’ images, prompting campus police to investigate the act as a hate crime, Harvard Law dean Martha Minow said in a statement.

“Expressions of hatred are abhorrent, whether they be directed at race, sex, sexual preference, gender identity, religion or any other targets of bigotry,” Minow said.

At a campus community meeting Thursday, 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,” reported the Harvard Crimson, a campus newspaper.

At Harvard, students have organized an effort to change the law school’s crest, which is the same as the coat-of-arms of slaveholder Isaac Royall Jr., whose estate help found the school. The Royall Must Fall group  describes itself as “a movement of students calling for the decolonization of our campus, the symbols, the curriculum and the history of Harvard Law School.”Student activists have called the incident “hateful retaliation” against black student activism. The portraits were defaced at a time when conversations about institutional racism on campuses have been thrust into the national spotlight. Earlier this month, the University of Missouri president resigned  amid growing complaints, protests and boycotts over his handling of racism and bigotry on the system’s flagship campus.

[Why some students say Harvard Law School’s crest is ‘a source of shame’]

Harvard students circulated photos of the defaced portraits soon after the discovery. Second-year student Michele Hall told The Washington Post that while she was upset upon seeing the images, “I also wasn’t surprised. This is part and parcel of what is happening here at Harvard and also at other institutions across the country.”

Hall, who wrote about the law school incident on Blavity, called the defacing of the portraits “an act of bias and an act of hate meaning to show that we don’t belong, that black professors don’t belong here,” she said. “It’s part of a larger narrative of black students and students of color not belonging here and being excluded here.”

Minow, the dean, said in an e-mail to the law school student body  that she was “saddened and angered by this act,” the Boston Globe reported. The campus community meeting, already scheduled for Thursday, ended up centered on the incident and racism, Hall said.

The incident also happened a day after students from Harvard and nearby schools joined in demonstrations to show support for black activists on campuses nationwide. Third-year law student Jonathan Wall told the Globe he was “disgusted” by the defacing, and said “it seems to be in response to yesterday’s day of activism.”“Here at [Harvard Law School], we are focused on efforts to improve our community, examining structures that may contribute to negative experiences of any members of our community, and pursuing opportunities where the School can both change and support change,” Minow said in a statement.

[Increasingly unified protests over race gain voice nationally with #studentblackout day]

Harvard campus police did not immediately respond to The Post’s inquiries. A spokesman told the Globe  there was an “open and active investigation.”

Professor Ronald Sullivan tweeted a photo of his defaced portrait. “All faculty of color woke up to the same thing this morning,” he wrote.

But as news spread of the incident, students placed their own messages alongside the portraits: Post-It notes with positive messages about those professors.

“Professor Ogletree inspired me,” read one such note. “I am proud to have been his student.”

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Harvard University police earlier this month closed their investigation into the incident in whichsomeone placed strips of black tape over photographs of black professors displayed in the law school’s Wasserstein Hall.

Officials from the department had first said they were treating the incident, which happened in November, as a hate crime.

But in a statement Monday, police spokesman Steven Catalano confirmed that the department has ended its nearly two-month pursuit of a suspect, unless any new or significant information presents itself.

“Over the past six weeks, HUPD investigators conducted a thorough investigation through interviews with many members of the campus community and forensic examination of physical evidence retrieved from the portraits,” Catalano said. “After pursuing these avenues, they were unable to identify the person or persons responsible for placing the tape on the portraits, or to determine the motivation for these acts.”

Images of the marred portraits were shared on Twitter in November by Jonathan Wall, a third-year law school student. The strips of black tape were meticulously placed over pictures of prominent black faculty members.

The incident prompted students from the law school to band together and write encouraging, positive notes about each professor, and place them on the portraits instead.

On Jan. 8, a message about police putting an end to their investigation into the “deeply troubling incident” was sent by Francis X. McCrossan, dean of administration at Harvard Law School, to law school community.

McCrossan said in the notice that if Harvard police decide to reopen the case, the law school would share with people any significant updates.

In the meantime, officials will install security cameras in the Wasserstein building, which includes Wasserstein Hall, where the tape was found; the Caspersen Student Center; and the Clinical Wing.

“As an academic community, we place great value on maintaining a largely open campus. But we must balance that openness with the equally important need for safety,” McCrossan said.

A.J. Clayborne, a Harvard law student and member of the group “Royall Must Fall,” which has been fighting for the removal of the school’s official seal because it includes elements drawn from a slave-holding family’s crest, said the administration's failure to address systemic racism leads to incidents like the tape incident.

“It is unfortunate that the investigation was unsuccessful, but this incident was merely a symptom of a larger racial malady at Harvard Law School. Until the law school addresses its problems systematically incidents such as these will undoubtedly continue to occur,” Clayborne said in an e-mail.

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