Harvard Scholar Plans Documentary After Arrest for Trying to Break Into Own Home
Corrected: Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. says his arrest for trying to break into his own home is leading him on a new path: He is planning a documentary on the treatment of blacks by the criminal justice system.
“I want to be a figure for prison reform,” he told the Washington Post. “I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.”
The arrest surprised Gates, one of the nation’s foremost African-American scholars, even though he is well aware of the history of racism. “I haven’t even come close to being arrested. I would have said it was impossible,” Gates told the Post. He was arrested for disorderly conduct based on his “loud and tumultuous” behavior during the incident, according to a police report. The charge has since been dropped.
Gates said he found himself locked out of his home and tried to push the door open along with the help of his taxi driver, prompting a police call from a neighbor. Gates had just returned from a trip to China to research the genealogy of cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Gates doesn’t blame the neighbor for placing the call, but he is upset because, in his view, the white police officer presumed he was guilty.
He told the Post his documentary will ask: “How are people treated when they are arrested? How does the criminal justice system work? How many black and brown men and poor white men are the victims of police officers who are carrying racist thoughts?”
Correction: An earlier version of this post misidentified Gates as a law professor. He is not. Gates heads the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.
