Student Alleges Racial Bias at Coop

Prompted by a Black undergraduate's claim that she was unjustly accused of theft by security guard in the Harvard Coop last month, Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III has asked the store to institute racial sensitivity training programs for all employees and to discipline the staff members involved.

In an hour-long meeting held December 14, Coop President James Argeros apologized verbally to the student, Maisha V. Moses '91, and promised to discipline employees for the incident, Epps and Moses said last week.

Epps said that Argeros and Dawn J. Krasinski, the Coop's director of security, seemed "responsive" to his and Moses' proposals. "Clearly, the Coop made a mistake, and did apologize during the meeting," Epps said.

In a statement describing the incident, Moses said that she entered the Coop's music section on December 11 and initially decided to buy a new L.L. Cool J compact disc. After reconsidering her decision, she put the CD back and left the store, whereupon she was stopped by two security guards who asked to search her bag, Moses said.

Moses said she refused to let the guards search her, but agreed to let them take her to a store manager, where she opened her bag and coat to show that she did not have the CD.

Moses then told the manager that the guards had stopped her because she is Black, she said. When Moses asked the manager why she had been suspected, he replied that she had probably intended to steal the CD, but later decided against it, according to her account.

In an interview Saturday, Moses said that racially discriminatory "profiles" of likely shoplifters were common in stores throughout the Square.

"There's this profile that people have. You see that young Black people are in the store, you think they're there to steal. It's not just a Coop problem, it's a societal problem," Moses said.

But at the December 14 meeting, the Coop officials denied that they used a profile to search out shoplifters, Moses said.

Moses said that she had still not received a written letter of apology from the store, as she had requested during the meeting. Argeros said at the meeting that the Coop's lawyers had advised him against issuing such a letter, she said.

Argeros could not be reached for comment on Friday. Krasinski, however, said that her staff members had notstopped Moses because of her race.

"I can guarantee you that it was not a raciallymotivated incident," she said. "The securitydepartment here does not work on race, it works onpreventing problems."

Moses said that she still believes her race wasa factor in the incident, and that she willcontinue to seek a written apology. Epps said thathe believed Moses was justified in seeking furtheraction from the Coop.

Epps is a stockholder at The Coop, a positionwhich he said involved no financial decisions, butmerely "general oversight responsibilities."

Moses, who said she has yet to buy the L.L.Cool J album, said that she and many of herfriends have decided not to shop at the Coop inthe wake of the incident.

Editor's Note: While its permanent buildingis being rennovated, The Crimson is leasingtemporary office space from the Coop. In theinterest of full disclosure, this note will runwith every article in The Crimson concerning theCoop.