Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Arrested At His Home

World-renown Harvard University professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. was arrested by Cambridge, Massachusetts police last week while he tried to enter his own home. He cites racial profiling in the incident.

Black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is accusing a Massachusetts police department of racism after being arrested while trying to get into his locked home near Harvard University.

Police say they were called to the home Thursday afternoon after a woman reported seeing a man try to pry open the front door.

They say that they ordered the man to identify himself and that Gates refused. According to a police report, Gates then called the officer a racist and said, “This is what happens to black men in America.”

Police declined to comment Monday. Gates referred comment to his lawyer, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, who did not immediately return a call.

Gates is the director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

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