On Race, U-Hall Should Practice What it Preaches

To the editors:

On Wednesday night, I attended the panel discussion "Race@Harvard." As Jenny Heller's article "Faculty, Students Engage in Standers Dialogue on Race" (News, March 12) notes, although there were no real solutions proffered at the discussion, the beginning of a healthy dialogue between faculty and students was initiated.

Nonetheless, Dean of Students Archie C. Epps's performance was extremely disappointing. Almost three weeks ago, a Cambridge Police Officer approached three black students, Nester Clark '98, Byron Logan '98 and Jason Williamson '98, sitting on the steps of Claverly Hall, and basically asked them what they were doing in the neighborhood.

I have served as a resident tutor in Claverly Hall for four years. I have witnessed students of other racial and ethnic backgrounds shouting, playing guitar, singing and carrying on in other forms on the steps of Claverly in much noisier fashion at much later times in the day and evening. Why do you think African-American male students were singled out?

I have been the first line of response for the University in this and another incident last year, and I can tell anyone who cares to listen that the students were very emotionally hurt by these police actions, which they view in racial terms. Although it may not solve the problem directly, I do believe it helps when administrators take steps to help ease their pain. As they should have, the students in the latter case heard words of remorse and encouragement from their house master and Allston Burr Senior Tutor within 36 hours of the incident, neither of whom are in a direct position to take this matter further without University Hall.

Why haven't these students heard directly from their Dean of Students three weeks after the event? My students obviously cannot answer this question either. At last night's forum, they politely asked the Dean why they had failed to hear from him, or at least his office. The Dean's first response, that "they were not Harvard Police officers" who had harrassed them, was not only puzzling. It was appalling.

Over the last four years, I have sat through countless tutor training sessions in which University Hall stressed that we should monitor our students' emotional well-being and be there to help them through their ups and downs. I wonder if the Dean saw the pain in the expressions of these young men when they heard his response to their query. I wonder if the Dean recognizes that this is a pattern of behavior that could have an impact on all students at Harvard. I wonder why the Dean has not set up a discussion in Claverly Hall to help these young men, who in the words of Cornel West, new recognize that their ideas of themselves as Harvard students free to roam the University and Cambridge now "rests on puding." I wonder when the African-American men of Claverly Hall and their tutor will no longer have to wait. Most of all, I wonder when University Hall will practice what it preaches. ALVIN B. TILLERY, JR.   March 12, 1998

The writer is Ph.D. Candidate in Government and a resident tutor in Adams House.