Senior Punished for Racial Slur

A North House senior today will ask the Administrative Board to reconsider its decision to require him to withdraw for one year as punishment for using a racial slur last winter in a phone call to a Black student working at the Currier House bell desk.

The College's chief disciplinary body last Tuesday also handed down the same punishment to four other students who shattered a window near the Black student that same night, less than an hour before that student received the phone call containing a racial slur. The events of that early January morning rocked the Harvard community, spurring a reassessment of racial attitudes on campus.

But in its deliberations last week the Ad Board decided that the four students involved in the window-breaking and Jack C. Patterson '88, who made the phone call with a racial slur, were not acting together. The Ad Board ruled that the window-breaking was not racially motivated.

The Ad Board also will consider today the case of a sixth student, who was Patterson's roommate last winter, who made a second phone call to the Black student at the bell desk five minutes after the one with a racial slur. That second phone call did not contain a racial slur.

Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57, who chairs the Ad Board, would not comment on the cases. He said this was not the first time that the disciplinary body has dealt with racial harassment cases.

Neither Patterson nor his roommate at the time would comment on the cases last night, saying that it "would not be appropriate" for them to speak before their hearings today. Only one of the four students involved in breaking the window could be reached for comment yesterday. That student spoke on the condition that he would not be indentified.

The Crimson has decided to with hold the names of all the students except Patterson, whose case is the only one found to have racial overtones.

If Patterson's appeal is denied, he can take his case to the full Faculty of Arts and Sciences. That body last overturned a disciplinary decision in 1969, Jewett said.

The students who broke the window were not punished for racial harassment. Instead, members of the board were concerned by "the nature of the weapon and the recklessness of using a catapult capable of breaking safety glass at 100 yards," said one Ad Board member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The student disciplined for breaking the window told The Crimson last night that Jewett said an appeal on the window-breaking cases would probably be futile because there was precedent for the punishment.

The consideration of all these cases by the Ad Board comes eight months after the incidents took place in the Quad during the early morning hours of Sunday, January 25.

At about 3:30 a.m., Johnathan O. Williams '88, the Black student working at the bell desk, reported to University police that a plate glass window had been shattered by two oranges. Forty-five minutes later, Williams told police that he had received an anonymous phone call in which a male said, "Negro hit squad strikes again."

He later received a second phone call from a different person who said, "How's the draft in there, man?"

Williams said yesterday that he thought the punishments meted out to the students who broke the window and made the phone call containing a racial slur were "a little strict." Williams said he was not asked to testifybefore the Ad Board.

"I might have wished to see [Patterson] in apublic service activity but you can't force peopleto appreciate other people," Williams said.

Williams said at the time of the incident thathe viewed the call as "a light-hearted" prank.

But the events of that night, which came at atime when racist incidents were making headlinesnationwide, prompted administrators to create astudent-faculty committee on race relations. Initially,the window-breaking and the phone calls were thoughtto be related.

According to the student who was punished forbreaking the window, he and his three companionshurled the oranges with a slingshot from the NorthHouse breezeway following a drunken snowball fightin the Quad.

Patterson was on his way home from a party andwas also drunk when he witnessed the shattering ofthe bell-desk window, the student said.

Patterson, who is a starting defensive back onthe varsity football team, then returned to hisroom, informed his roommate of what he had seen,and placed the call to Williams. His roommate thenfollowed with his prank call asking about the"draft."

The student involved in breaking the windowsaid that he and his friends found out about thephone calls the following morning.

"We said [to Patterson], 'What did you say thatfor?' and he said, `I can't believe I said that.It was so totally stupid,'" according to thestudent involved in breaking the window.

The student involved in the window-breakingsaid he and his three companions decided not tocome forward to University officials about theiractions for fear of being seen as racists."Because of Dartmouth and Howard Beach it seemedwe were really going to take a hosing for this.Better to let it blow over, which it did," thestudent involved in breaking the window said.

Around the time of Commencement, the studentswere informed that the Ad Board was aware of theirnames. The student invovled in the window-breakingsaid he and his three companions decided to comefoward after they were notified that the Ad Boardviewed the phone calls as separate from theiraction.

The four students also paid for a replacementwindow, said Hanna M. Hastings, co-master of NorthHouse.

The student added that their names came tolight following a lengthy, unofficialinvestigation by Tim Galloway, a North Housepre-law tutor. Galloway graduated from Harvard LawSchool in June and could not be reached forcomment.

Since some of the students involved had alreadyleft for the summer, the Ad Board elected topostpone the hearing until this fall. "We dealtwith this case as soon as we could," Jewett said