Harvard Law Students Take Action Against Cure Lounge

Nearly a month after Cure Lounge management shut down a party attended mainly by black Harvard and Yale graduate students and alumni for fear of “local gang bangers” in the crowd, students have taken action to ensure that the club suffers the consequences of its perceived act of racism.

Students and faculty interviewed for this article also expressed the concern that important questions raised by the incident have yet to be resolved. Conflicting reasons for the club’s decision to shut down the party have been in circulation, and it remains unclear why the club managers did not call the police upon perceiving a threat to its patrons’ security.

Law School student Natalia N. Pearson-Farrer, who had attended the event at Cure, said that she and fellow students have been working to make sure that Cure is properly reprimanded for its actions.

“This wasn’t an issue of Harvard students being offended,” Pearson-Farrer said. “We as black people were being unfairly, [and] something needed to be done.”

Law School students have appeared on radio shows, written opinion pieces, and contacted and filed complaints with groups like the Massachusetts Better Business Bureau and the Alcohol Licensing Board, according to Pearson-Farrer. Even Laura Snowdon, dean of students at the Graduate School of Design, sent an e-mail to students asking them to reconsider patronizing Cure.

Upon the urging of some Law School students, the Civil Rights Division of the state Attorney General’s office is working with the Boston Licensing Division to investigate the club’s decision to shut down the party. The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.

Harvard Law Professor Charles J. Ogletree, who studies race and criminal justice, said that the Civil Rights Division will speak to all the witnesses at the incident, examine the related statutes, and decide whether the patron’s civil rights had been violated, upon giving Cure a “full and fair” opportunity to defend itself.

The Massachusetts General Laws, as provided on the Attorney General’s website, states that no place of public accommodation—a bar, for example—shall make “any distinction, discrimination, or restriction on account of race.” Perpetrators are liable to aggrieved parties and must compensate the state by paying a fine or serving time in prison.

Ogletree, who is an adviser for the Harvard Black Law Students Association, said he believes the Attorney General’s office will likely determine that Cure had infringed upon the rights of the event attendees.

“It is absolutely clear that the people in line were Harvard and Yale students, not causing disturbances, or creating danger,” he said. “It’s another indication of an individual presuming guilt based on race.”

Lauren A. Rivera, a sociology professor at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, said that her research indicated that club security generally fears that African Americans will attract the wrong crowd and that “being African American is associated with being a threat.”

Rivera, who once studied the sociology of nightlife security as a graduate student at Harvard, said that these perceptions of African Americans are rooted in the history of the United States’ intricate relationship with race.

“Through our unique history, race has come to be associated with a number of positive things and a number of negative things,” Rivera said.

Though she declined to draw conclusions on the specifics of the Cure incident, Rivera said that the club’s history may have informed the management’s decision. Two years ago, a black male brought a gun into the club, opening fire on the crowd and starting a brawl. The club was forced to close and open under a new name.

Upon receiving criticism for shutting down the party on Nov. 20 for fear of attracting potentially “the wrong crowd,” Cure denied allegations of discrimination against the black Harvard and Yale students in attendance, calling them “absolutely baloney.”

George Regan, the spokesperson for Cure, said that he is “tired of dealing” with the fallout from the incident and “sick of” discussing the matter, adding that the event promoters are playing a “game” with an agenda in mind in the aftermath of the incident.

Event promoters Michael Beal ’06 and Kwame Osuwu-Kesse ’06, both second-year students at Harvard Business School, have not returned calls or e-mails requesting comment. The pair has not made any official comments for other publications as well.

—Staff writer Caroline McKay can be reached at carolinemckay@harvard.college.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: December 15, 2010

An earlier verison of the Dec. 15 news article "Harvard Law Students Take Action Against Cure Lounge" incorrectly stated that Mohsen Mostafavi, the dean of the Graduate School of Design, sent an e-mail to students asking them to reconsider patronizing Cure. In fact, GSD Dean of Students Laura Snowdon sent the e-mail.