Khurana Calls Controversial April Arrest ‘Distressing,’ Promises to Support Students

Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana called the controversial April 13 arrest of a black Harvard undergraduate “distressing” and said the College is working “very closely” to provide information and support to University affiliates in the wake of the incident in an interview last month.

Cambridge Police Department officers arrested a College student April 13 at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Waterhouse Street on charges including indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, and assault. Officers tackled the student—who was naked—to the ground after determining the undergraduate had previously taken narcotics.

CPD officers later wrote in a police report they tackled the student because he was making aggressive movements toward law enforcement officials. But members of the Harvard Black Law Students Association who witnessed the event have called CPD’s version of events “incorrect” and have said the officers tackled the student without provocation.

While on the ground, at least one CPD officer punched the student in the stomach five times in an attempt to unpin the student’s arms and handcuff the undergraduate, according to the CPD police report.

Khurana said the College’s goal is to “make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.”

He also appeared to endorse the idea of revising current Harvard policies and procedures in the aftermath of the arrest.

“It’s clear that we have work to do to ensure that there’s clear understandings in our community about how our basic health services and security services work,” he said. “Whether protocols were followed or not is, to me, not the issue because this is not the outcome we want and so we should decide from what is the outcome we want which is the safety and well-being of our students and work backwards to ensure that the practices and procedures and protocols we have in place produce those outcomes.”

In the weeks following the incident, members of Black Students Organizing for Change—a group formed in the aftermath of the arrest—penned an open letter addressed to the “Harvard Community” demanding various University reforms in the wake of the arrest.

BSOC demanded Harvard provide financial and academic support for the arrested student and publish a report on the events leading up to the student’s arrest. The group also called on the University to designate all drug and alcohol-related calls to Harvard University Health Services as medical emergencies, to acquire a University-owned ambulance, and to expedite “hiring of Black and Brown counselors at Harvard Counseling and Mental Health Services.”

The group asked the University to agree via written statement by May 1 to implement these measures. University President Drew G. Faust later formed a committee to “review” the events leading up to the student’s arrest, though she said this committee did not come as a response to student demands.

Khurana did not directly answer a question asking whether the College plans to respond to the demands laid out by BSOC in the April interview. Instead, he noted Harvard is in touch with students who have raised concerns about the arrest.

“We’ve been engaging with a variety of different students in a number of venues, including the students who are helping coordinate and identify student needs,” Khurana said. “The University is engaging with them, and we look forward to continually engaging with them.”

He declined to comment on the specific nature of this engagement.

Khurana also declined to comment on the status of the arrested student. When asked whether he believed the incident constituted police brutality, Khurana did not directly answer.

“I don’t think anybody wanted the outcome that we saw,” he said.

Khurana also declined to comment on whether the University has been in contact with CPD in the weeks following the arrest. He declined to comment on whether he thinks CPD should pursue charges against the student.

Other University administrators have also publicly denounced the April 13 incident. In an email sent to University affiliates April 16, University President Drew G. Faust called the arrest “profoundly disturbing.”

—Staff writer Caroline S. Engelmayer can be reached at caroline.engelmayer@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @cengelmayer13.