Following the recommendation of an external review into Harvardâs police department, a newly formed committee comprised of affiliates spanning the University that will advise the departmentâs leadership held its inaugural meeting last month.
University President Lawrence S. Bacow announced the department review in June 2020 on the heels of student outrage over the presence of HUPD officers monitoring a protest in Boston following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by Minneapolis police.
The external review produced a more comprehensive probe into HUPD than an internal review set in motion in February 2020 in response to an investigation by The Crimson that found repeated instances of racism and sexism in the department and held the departmentâs leadership responsible for perpetuating a toxic culture among officers.
A panel of education leaders discussed strategies to combat racism in school classrooms during a Harvard Graduate School of Education webinar Wednesday.
The webinar, part of the Education Now webinar series HGSE launched last year, was hosted by HGSE Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Tracie D. Jones. The panel included J. Malcolm Cawthorne, a Brookline High School teacher; Jennifer P. Cheatham, a senior lecturer at HGSE and former teacher and administrator; and Heidi Shin, a journalist and radio producer. The speakers discussed the flaws of school systems’ current approach to racism between students and how to address those shortcomings.
The Harvard Graduate School of Education will expand its work on diversity and inclusion through intentional hiring and planning in its summer programming, HGSE Dean Bridget Terry Long and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Director Tracie D. Jones said in interviews with The Crimson.
As the school plans to reopen this fall, Long said the school is investing in staff keenly dedicated to diversity and inclusion.
“We need to make more progress in terms of action, and so we’ve been investing to increase our capacity, more staff focused on these issues, expertise being brought in,” Long said.
Jones said the school has hired a senior instructional coach for anti-racist pedagogy and is in the process of hiring more staff, including a librarian who specializes in critical pedagogy.