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Portraits Of Black Professors At Harvard Law Defaced — ‘We Woke Up To A Hate Crime’

By Benjamin Simon
Published on: 10:59 PST, Nov 19, 2015

In the midst of an ongoing controversy over the Black Lives Matter protest in the United States, someone sent a disturbing message to the black population at Harvard Law School by defacing every single portrait of a black professor on display.

One of the Harvard Law buildings, Wasserstein Hall, features framed photos of faculty members. According to the Huffington Post, an unidentified culprit put black tape over the faces of all the black professors in a diagonal stripe, as if to “cross them out.” Pictures of the defaced portraits were posted online by multiple students, showing that the vandal made a point to target black professors by leaving portraits of other faculty members alone.

Many students are considering this act of vandalism to be a hate crime, and one of them is Michele Hall, who wrote a blog post about the defaced photos of black professors. She claims the act felt especially malicious because the portraits in Wassertstein Hall bring her and other black students feelings of “pride and promise.”

“The defacing of the portraits of black professors this morning is a further reminder that white supremacy built this place, is the foundation of this place, and that we never have and still do not belong here,” she wrote.

The Harvard University Police Department is investigating the incident but spokeswoman Michelle Deakin said that the school has no public comment at this time.

Despite Harvard having a reputation as a reputable and progressive school, Michele Hall cited that this act of vandalism against black professors is an example of how much more work the university — as well as the rest of the country — has to do to extinguish racism.

“We will march and scream and sit in and walk out and shout our demands and make ourselves heard and tear down these hallways of white supremacy because we belong here too. And no longer can you make us feel that we do not belong here.”

It appears that the portraits of black professors were defaced in direct response to a rally that Harvard Law students held the day before in support of black student activists protesting on other college campuses, according to WCVB. Students walked out in the middle of class to honor the black students protesting at the University of Missouri and Yale. University President Drew Faust and Dean Rakesh Khurana joined the rally.

The president of the Black Law Students Association, Leland Shelton, spoke to Think Progress about the vandalism, claiming it was meant to be interpreted as a hostile message against the black professors and students, saying it “wasn’t done by an ally. It wasn’t in support of black students and black professors.”

For more about the protests happening at the University of Missouri, read about how threats from hate groups have led black Mizzou students to fear for their lives. Or read about the recent incident in the Black Lives Matter protest that resulted in 51 of the protesters being arrested by the police department.

What would you do if you woke up to see portraits of black professors defaced at your university? What if you were among the group that had been targeted? Do you think these black professors were the victims of a hate crime?

[Image via Shutterstock]

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