Some APALSA Members Split Over Temple Bar Incident

In a tense meeting last night, the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) debated the group's official position on some of its members' discrimination charges against the staff of Temple Bar.

The meeting and the accusations were sparked by an incident last Tuesday night when 15 members of the group were forced to wait 25 minutes to get a table at the partially-filled bar.

The day after the incident, former APALSA co-chair Susan Perng wrote an e-mail message--but it was sent out under the auspices of APALSA with current co-chair Shan M. Chang's "signature."

Because the message was signed by Chang instead of its author and distributed through the APALSA list, many members took it as an official group communiqu.

The letter's tone and its publication still did not sit well with some members.

"It is shocking that this drastic move...was done with zero input from the general membership," said member Roger Severino '99 in an e-mail message.

Chang acknowledged the potential confusion of the message's authorship.

"I wasn't clear that it was an individual, not an official message," she said.

Serevino also took issue with the actual charges of discrimination.

"I don't think they realize they are vilifying real, hard-working people. They didn't take enough steps to hear Temple Bar's side of the story," he said.

The message reached the e-mail list of APALSA, the publishers of Diversity and Distinction, the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the Harvard Human Rights Journal and members of La Alianza.

Many more students received the message as its first recipients forwarded it to other groups. One attendee of the meeting said she believed it had reached every ethnic group in the College.

The message describes the group's trip to Temple Bar and alleges unfair treatment.

"A week earlier, some of our members had attended a student event comprised of Asian Americans and non-Asian Americans. There was no problem seating that group," the message reads.

It describes the seating problem as "different treatment" and goes on to advocate a boycott.

"We hope you join us in disavowing any patronage of an institution that treats a large group of Asian Pacific Americans with suspicion and distrust, and which attempts in not so subtle ways to make us feel unwelcome," the message reads.

The group went to the bar last Tuesday evening around 9 p.m. They waited approximately 10 minutes to be seated before asking about the delay when many tables were empty.

The hostess, according to the Temple Bar owners, told the group that tables were reserved for dining patrons

Several members of the group told the hostess that they would be eating, Perng said.

But the hostess was not aware that the group would be eating, said Gerry Sheerin, co-owner of the bar and the manager on duty the evening the incident occurred.

After this miscommunication the group resumed waiting, and an employee then began checking their identification. Perng said the examinations were unfair and several people entered the bar without having their IDs checked while the group continued waiting.

"Normally, the waitress checks IDs at the table if they'll be ordering food. According to the hostess, [at this point] there was not mention of ordering food," he said.

Sheerin said the bar was also being particularly vigilant about checking identification that evening since it was hosting an event for College seniors.

After waiting another 10 minutes, Perng said she asked to speak to the manager. Then, she said, the hostess returned and told the group the table they were waiting for would only seat 10 people.

Perng said when she spoke with the manager, she asked him why the group was not seated immediately once it told the hostess it intended to order dinner.

The group was seated and Sheerin then came to speak to them. Perng said in an e-mail message, "[Sheerin] said that we looked young and that he was doing us a favor by seating us. He insisted that he did not have to seat us."

But Perng was careful to avoid any direct call for a boycott and treaded carefully the line between accusation of discrimination and accusation of bad hosting.

"I won't go back. I told my friends not to go back, just like as if I had received bad service at Cambridge Common or Legal Seafood," she said. "But there was something more here. Our treatment was different because we were Asian."

The meeting closed without the members reaching a general consensus on a boycott or a discrimination charge.