(Screenshot from WSVN 7News report)
Portraits of Black professors at Harvard Law School were recently discovered with black tape over the faculty members’ faces, prompting investigations into the act as a possible hate crime.
According to CNN, approximately six of the 180 portraits of professors located in Wasserstein Hall were found with tape over their faces on Nov. 19. All depicted African-American professors.
The Harvard University Police Department continues to investigate the act, according to Boston ABC affiliate WCVB, and it was unclear whether the incident was a reaction to a rally on campus a day earlier in support of African-American students nationwide.
Students rallied around the faculty, according to the television station; less than 24 hours after the incident, the portraits had been redecorated with messages of support. However, some pointed to the act as an example of ongoing racial issues at the school.
“Speaking as a student of color, I know that while I am hurt and saddened, I am not surprised,” A.J. Clayborne, who will graduate from Harvard Law in 2016, told CNN in an email. “This is merely a symptom of the greater systemic racism that currently permeates this law school and legal institutions in general.”
In a Nov. 27 op/ed in The New York Times, Randall Kennedy an African American and Harvard Law faculty member said the quick repudiation of the black tape with messages of support was evidence of progress.
“At Harvard, the dozen or so strips of black tape that prompted the crisis have been replaced by hundreds of brightly colored stickers expressing respect and appreciation, and rejecting bigotry,” he wrote.”
