Harvard Law May be Covering Up Defacement Investigation, Suggests Law Prof John Banzhaf
Summary
Washington, DC, December 04, 2015 --( This seems very strange if not downright suspicious, he says, since the number of likely suspects - those with both a motive and access to the building late at night when the taping apparently occurred - seems small.This is because those who engaged in the two earlier defacement actions did so openly and apparently faced no university discipline, much less a request that they be investigated by the police for a hate crime, Banzhaf argues.Finally, if the defacement now under investigation was the work of black students, as either Kennedy or Mystal has suggested, Harvard would be in an even more embarrassing predicament, argues Banzhaf.Having very strongly and publicly condemned this recent taping, it would be very difficult for Harvard to now seek to excuse it solely because the perpetrators turned out to be blacks rather than white racists, or simply because the Law School’s administration happened to sympathize with their message, he suggests.This is because those who engaged in the two earlier defacement actions did so openly and apparently faced no university discipline, much less a request that they be investigated by the police for a hate crime, Banzhaf argues.Finally, if the defacement now under investigation was the work of black students, as either Kennedy or Mystal has suggested, Harvard would be in an even more embarrassing predicament, argues Banzhaf.Having very strongly and publicly condemned this recent taping, it would be very difficult for Harvard to now seek to excuse it solely because the perpetrators turned out to be blacks rather than white racists, or simply because the Law School’s administration happened to sympathize with their message, he suggests.All of this very strongly suggests that schools, especially very prestigious ones like Harvard, should not speak and act about on-campus expressive speech prematurely before most of the underlying facts are known, and that it certainly should not denounce - much less refer for possible criminal prosecution - expressions which are fully protected by academic freedom, suggests Banzhaf.