Black students rallied outside of Harvard University’s Massachusetts Hall as eight students sat in a closed-door meeting with top school officials, hoping for their demands to be met by senior administrators.
After an hour of going back and forth, students say the school decision-makers heard them out but failed to agree to any of their wishes.
Eight student leaders had five demands, all connected to the “swatting” attack on four students at the Leverett House on April 3.
On that morning, the Harvard University Police Department, responding to a hoax 911 call, swarmed the dorm room of four students with their guns out — ordering them out of their room at the crack of dawn.
The young scholars Jarah K. Cotton, Jazmin N. Dunlap, David G. Madzivanyika and Alexandra C. René say they are now traumatized by how they were treated during the botched raid.
Students and their supporters allege the incident was fueled by stereotypes and systemic racism, demanding the institution investigate how campus security and law enforcement addresses people of color.
Within their demands, presented by 45 Black student organizations on the campus, officials were asked to issue a university-wide statement about the incident. Also as part of the demands: deliver justice to the targeted students via a real investigation, grant access to police reports and regular updates on ongoing investigations to those directly involved, host a town hall meeting with top leaders within the Crimson community and implement “proactive mental health responses” for the students involved in the incident.
The open letter was published in the school’s newspaper on April 21.
“We assert that Black students should not have to live in fear of the police force being used as a weapon against them. We condemn the University’s failure to, at large, protect its Black community’s emotional and physical wellbeing in the aftermath of such trauma,” it…
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