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More police, less Harvard

Freedom watch
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE  |  April 16, 2008

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The Harvard Crimson reported this week the arrest of two non-student demonstrators at a student-organized protest in front of Holyoke Center. The crimes? Boston resident Lisa Nieves, 29, noticed an undercover Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) officer taking photographs of demonstrators and sought to even the sides by photographing the cop. Of course, a disturbing-the-peace charge against Nieves was promptly dismissed; taking photographs of an undercover intelligence agent is not a crime.

Resisting-arrest charges remain against Patrick Keaney, 38, of Boxborough, for allegedly linking arms with Nieves during her arrest.

The ACLU of Massachusetts (full disclosure: I serve on its Board of Directors) is questioning why Harvard has a political-intelligence unit in the first place. Frankly, I suspect this intelligence unit, which I also noticed photographing protesters at a campus anti-war demonstration in March, is not a recent addition. HUPD has a long record of abusing students’ rights. I ran an advertisement in the Crimson back in October 1993 asking students to report to my law firm instances of abuse by HUPD, since I had a number of Harvard-student clients at the time whose rights had been violated, including one of the worst instances of racial profiling I have ever encountered. More police, less Harvard, I thought at the time. I see things haven’t improved much since.

Related: Harvard Square, The Cambridge Castle of Comedy, Schoolhouse sex: It rocks, More more >
  Topics: This Just In , Ivy League, Photography, American Civil Liberties Union,  More more >
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ARTICLES BY HARVEY SILVERGLATE
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  •   FREE SPEECH AGAIN QUASHED AT HARVARD  |  October 21, 2009
    It should come as no surprise to readers of “Freedom Watch” that yet another instance of political, intellectual, and academic censorship has sprung up at Harvard, the self-touted pinnacle of higher education.
  •   THE GATES CASE ISN'T ABOUT RACE  |  August 05, 2009
    The weeks-long hubbub over the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. by the Cambridge Police Department has centered on race, understandably, for two reasons: 1) the African-American population has suffered inequitably in its relations with law enforcement across this country, and 2) a race story is easier for the media to tell — and to sell.
  •   MUZZLE AWARDS: COLLEGIATE DIVISION  |  July 10, 2009
    In a 1957 Supreme Court decision upholding the free-speech rights of university professors ( Sweezy v. New Hampshire ), Justice Felix Frankfurter quoted prominent South African scholars on the importance of academic freedom.
  •   GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY  |  June 24, 2009
    The US Supreme Court's June 18 decision denying prisoners access to DNA testing — a procedure that could reliably prove innocence — adds to the high court's decades-long shameful record on criminal-justice issues.
  •   ROBOJUDGE  |  June 11, 2009
    Judge Stephen Breyer, Bill Clinton's latest pick for the Supreme Court, has attracted support so broad that it spans ideological and political differences.  

 See all articles by: HARVEY SILVERGLATE

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