Arrested Men Were Harassed

To the Editors of The Crimson:

The Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) and The Harvard Crimson recently participated in what should be perceived as an attack on the gay community by using the most crude and violent tactics at their disposal to publicly humiliate, and consequently, to devastate seven gay men who were recently arrested for engaging in "open and gross lewdness" in the Science Center bathroom.

HUPD seems to have made every effort to trap and publicly expose the people who were arrested. At two times during the afternoon of Jan. 18, an undercover officer was stationed in the bathroom to "cruise" the men there and then arrest them for responding.

Harvard police handcuffed the men and paraded them out of the building past a crowd of spectators. Harvard police and, later, Cambridge police verbally harassed them, and the Cambridge police who booked the gay men insisted on wearing rubber gloves when fingerprinting them.

The Crimson committed what is perhaps the most damaging and insensitive act of the day: it decided to print the names of four of those arrested.

The entrapment, arrests and public flogging which took place last week highlight some painful ironies. The University, on one hand, makes few efforts to deal with the internalized homophobia and alienation that lead people to engage in bathroom sex.

On the other hand, the University is willing to brandish every destructive weapon at its disposal when it comes to punishing those who violate its selective sense of decency.

Similarly baffling is the near-silence in the university on the issue of date rape, a common crime on campus. We do not see the names of the accused printed on the front page of The Crimson. Nor are the accused rapists hauled from their dorm rooms in handcuffs.

But a victimless "crime" between two consenting adults in a bathroom generates a veritable circus of police and press activity.

If the University desires to allocate resources to prevent people from engaging in sexual activity in the Science Center bathroom, it has at its disposal any number of vastly more humane and less destructive tactics.

From the perspective of the men arrested in the Science Center last week, the University's and The Crimson's actions were violent. The psychological agony of arrest, harassment and publicity imposed on them was so disproportionate to the "offense" that we can only conclude that it was the perhaps unconscious manifestation of a deep-seated ignorance and fear of gay people and gay sex.

To our knowledge, the Harvard University gay community has never been consulted on the issue of how to deal with the Science Center bathroom. We would have suggested that the University take any number of less cruel measures to prevent sexual activity in the bathroom, (e.g. posting signs prohibiting sexual conduct; posting a uniformed guard rather than an undercover agent; etc).

Although the people arrested on Jan. 18 were not directly associated with the Harvard community, we personally know Harvard professors, students and staff members who very well could have been subjected to the same abuse.

We are outraged by the vents which took place last week. The Crimson, the Harvard police and the University must be held accountable for the unnecessary pain they caused to those arrested, and to the many members of the gay community on this campus who felt the blow. Morris Ratner   co-chair of the Harvard Law School Committee on Gay and Lesbian Legal Studies   Jarrett T. Barrios   co-chair of the Harvard-Radcliffe Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Student Association

Editor's Note:

It is the policy of The Crimson to print the names of persons reported arrested on any charges, including date rape. The Crimson does not print the names of victims of rape and sexual harrassment.