Following the distribution of white supremacist and anti-homosexual hate mail in student mailboxes at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, faculty and students conducted a “teach in” on March 17 to condemn the acts of bigotry and intimidation. Two separate fliers from a group whose name contains a slur against gays and lesbians; the first flier was given to four students who called for diversity in the faculty and curriculum in a co-authored student newspaper op-ed article. The second letter, which contained slurs against lesbians and gay men as well as people of African, Jewish, Asian, and Hispanic descent, was put in the mailbox of the op-ed editor of the student newspaper, The Citizen. Some have pointed to the overwhelmingly white faculty and student body at the school and a curriculum that does not address issues of lesbian and gay rights or of race as the context in which the hate mail should be considered. The second letter asserted, “We are all in favor of a white, heterosexual school…Our members have been seated both in the faculty and student body for years.” Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. has ordered campus police to conduct an investigation.
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