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July 21, 2009

Police Accused of Bias After Arresting Harvard Scholar Inside His Own Home
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One of the nation’s most prominent African American scholars, Henry
Louis Gates, Jr., has accused police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of
racial profiling after he was arrested in his own home late last week.
Gates is the head of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and
American Studies. Gates arrived at his home in Cambridge last Thursday
afternoon to find his front door jammed. As he tried to pry it open, a
neighbor called the police department and reported that a robbery was in
progress. Gates grew frustrated when an investigating officer did not
believe he was the owner of the home despite proof of residence.
According to a police report of the incident, Gates called the officer a
racist and said, “This is what happens to black men in America.”
Eventually Gates was handcuffed and taken to the police station. Gates
was charged with disorderly conduct.



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