Black Harvard Students Split Over Chanequa Campbell

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MICHEL MARTIN, host:

We just heard about the phenomenon of black men being used as imaginary villains to cover up misdeeds by whites. Now we're going to turn to the story of a black woman who claims she is being unfairly stereotyped because of her race and perhaps class background. But is that really true? Last Thursday, thousands of Harvard University students marched in procession to the acclaim of family and friends, and received their degrees. Chanequa Campbell, a senior honors student in the sociology department, was not among them.

Three weeks before commencement, Campbell was ordered off campus by the university, and told she would not be allowed to attend graduation. The order followed the shooting death outside Ms. Campbell's dormitory of a 21-year-old man named Justin Cosby, who has been described in local newspaper accounts as an alleged drug dealer.

University officials will not say exactly why Ms. Campbell was ordered off campus, along with another student named Brittany Smith. It's been reported that Ms. Smith was dating the deceased, but Ms. Campbell insists, through her lawyer, that she had absolutely nothing to do with the crime and is the victim of guilt by association. Campbell has not been charged with any crime.

What sparked the attention of our next guest is the fact that the usually vocal Harvard Black Student Association has been quiet. In fact, several members of the association have declined to speak with our program about this case. Harvard graduate Ashton Lattimore has been reporting on this story. She recently wrote an article titled "Why Black Harvard Won't Speak Up for Chanequa." She's a New York-based reporter and was a member of the Association of Black Harvard Women and the Black Students Association, and she joins us now from New York. Welcome, thank you for talking with us.

Ms. ASHTON LATTIMORE (Reporter): Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: I don't know if it matters, but I was also a member of the Black Students Association at Harvard, so…

Ms. LATTIMORE: Oh, wow.

MARTIN: So I'll just mention that, if that matters. So Ashton, what's the latest in this case? Have there been any new developments since you reported your last piece?

Ms. LATTIMORE: The last piece of information to come out that was new was that Brittany Smith also would not be graduating because up until a few days before graduation, it was believed that only Chanequa Campbell had been barred from graduation.

MARTIN: What is it that sparked your interest? Is it that you expected the Harvard community, particularly the African-American community, to be more vocal about Ms. Campbell? Or is it just the facts overall are just surprising, disturbing, newsworthy?

Ms. LATTIMORE: Well, the story had been all over the national media. You know, the New York Times and the Boston Globe had picked it up. And as it had unfolded and Ms. Campbell came out with her charge that the university was singling her out in part due to her race, that sparked a lot of discussion, particularly on online-commenting sections in different articles about race and class and affirmative action at schools like Harvard and other places. And it just started to seem strange that the student groups hadn't said anything yet because that's a conversation that ordinarily they would like to be a part of. And as someone who was part of the community myself as an undergraduate, it struck me as very strange that nobody had spoken out one way or the other.

MARTIN: And why do you think that is? I mean, to the degree that she has spoken to the media, and she's given some interviews, she believes that she's being singled out because she's, you know, loud and proud of her roots, that she says because she's black, because she's poor, essentially that she wasn't one of the in crowd. Do you think that that's true?

Ms. LATTIMORE: Based on my reporting, there are a number of reasons why people haven't come out and supported her or said anything about the case at all, really. A lot of it seems to be that people question the credibility of the statement that she's being singled out due to her race. And people are just reserving judgment as much as they can because, you know, if you're going to come out and say something that is going to antagonize the university, such as that they are racially profiling or racially singling someone out, you want to have all of your facts in order before you say something like that.

MARTIN: And what about Ms. Campbell's suggestion that she's being singled out because she is working class, she's not from an elite background?

Ms. LATTIMORE: I'm not really sure if that's really a claim that too many people find plausible, particularly because Harvard, as a university, does so much to attract students from lower-income backgrounds and does so much to make sure that they can thrive at the university, regardless of what kind of background they come from racially, socioeconomically. So that doesn't seem to be something that people are accepting too readily.

MARTIN: Given the reticence of so many of the students and university officials and university organizations, how many students were you able to speak to?

Ms. LATTIMORE: I was able to speak to over a dozen students, just in terms of my reporting and also informal conversations that people have among alumni and just students that I happen to know and other people happen to know. So I've been able to get a really good sample of undergraduate opinion and black alumni opinion.

MARTIN: Do you think it is wrong that the students are being as reticent as they are? Because one of the things I find interesting is that African-Americans are sometimes criticized for being too reflexively defensive of their own, as it were, when they're accused of wrongdoing - as in the case of an R. Kelly, for example, or as in the case of a Michael Jackson. And there are those who would say, well, why are we so quick to defend these people or to - you know, what's that about? And now that these students are not reflexively defending one of their own, as it were, it's causing some note. So do you think they're wrong to be reticent?

Ms. LATTIMORE: Not at all. I think that they're very wise. I think that a lot of people, when you mention things like R. Kelly and other situations like that - another relevant situation is the Duke lacrosse rape case from several years ago, when a lot of people came out in support of the alleged victim. And it turned out later that things hadn't gone exactly the way that she said they had gone, and that was a very racially charged case as well. And people learned a very hard lesson: that you should reserve your judgment, and you shouldn't say anything too quickly or jump to any racial conclusions too quickly until all the facts have come out.

So in terms of what the black community is doing right now at Harvard, not saying anything or keeping their opinions to themselves, that seems to be a very wise choice on their part. But in a larger sense, I think it's probably a good thing that it's being shown on a national level that black people and black students in general don't necessarily jump at any claim of racial discrimination. People take the time to think and really make their own decisions. And at the end of the day, I think that's the wisest thing to do.

MARTIN: Ashton Lattimore is a reporter for News One. She recently completed her master's degree in journalism at Columbia University, and she was kind enough to join us from our New York bureau. Ashton, thank you so much for speaking with us.

Ms. LATTIMORE: Thank you, Michel.

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