Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College et al
Filing
471
AMICUS BRIEF filed by Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, First Generation Harvard Alumni, Fuerza Latina of Harvard, Harvard Asian American Brotherhood, Harvard Islamic Society, Harvard Japan Society, Harvard Korean Association, Harvard Latino Alumni Alliance, Harvard Minority Association of Pre-Medical Students, Harvard Phillips Brooks House Association, Harvard South Asian Association, Harvard University Muslim Alumni, Harvard Vietnamese Association, Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Association, Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Women's Association, Harvard-Radcliffe Black Students Association, Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association, Kuumba Singers of Harvard College, Native American Alumni of Harvard University, Native Americans At Harvard College, Task Force on Asian and Pacific American Studies at Harvard College in Support of Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 2 Declaration, # 2 Exhibit 3 Declaration, # 3 Exhibit 4 Declaration, # 4 Exhibit 5 Declaration, # 5 Exhibit 6 Declaration, # 6 Exhibit 7 Declaration, # 7 Exhibit 8 Declaration, # 8 Exhibit 9 Declaration, # 9 Exhibit 10 Declaration, # 10 Exhibit 11 Declaration, # 11 Exhibit 12 Declaration, # 12 Exhibit 13 Declaration, # 13 Exhibit 14 Declaration, # 14 Exhibit 15 Declaration, # 15 Exhibit 16 Declaration, # 16 Exhibit 17 Declaration)(Thayer, Kenneth)
EXHIBIT 2
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
BOSTON DIVISION
STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC,
Plaintiff,
v.
Civil Action No. 1:14-cv-14176-ADB
PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF
HARVARD COLLEGE (HARVARD
CORPORATION),
Leave to file granted on July 31, 2018
Defendant.
DECLARATION OF ABA SAM
(HARVARD-RADCLIFFE BLACK STUDENTS ASSOCIATION)
Aba Sam, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 1746, declares the following:
1.
My name is Aba Sam. I am a member of Harvard College Class of 2021.
2.
I am currently Vice President of the Harvard-Radcliffe Black Students Association
(“BSA”) and am submitting this declaration individually and on behalf of BSA in support of race
consciousness in Harvard College’s admissions policy.
3.
BSA exists to foster community among Black students at Harvard College, as well
as to encourage interaction and facilitate dialogue among all members of the Harvard community,
and between the Harvard, Cambridge and Boston communities. Essentially, BSA organizes venues
and channels to provide a forum for the open expression of the political, social, and cultural views
of Black students. To this end, it provides a variety of programs and services to its membership
and the Black community at Harvard.
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4.
BSA was established during the 1976-1977 academic year, in response to a call to
protest an article in the Harvard Lampoon. BSA replaced the Association of African and AfroAmerican Students at Harvard and Radcliffe (“AFRO”). BSA aimed to present the Black student
perspective on various issues of concern at Harvard, such as affirmative action and the
development of Harvard’s Afro-American Studies Department. BSA strives to be an organization
that provides programming and support for all students that identify with the Black experience and
coordinates between many different Black student groups on campus.
5.
BSA is responsible for planning welcome events for new Black students, including
a Black Convocation, which is a formal welcome into Harvard University to show freshmen that
Black students exist here and that Black excellence happens here. In 2003, the BSA published the
first Black Guide to Life at Harvard.
6.
BSA works in coalition with other affinity groups to promote diversity and
inclusion, such as Fuerza Latina, the Asian American Students Association, and the First
Generation Student Union.
7.
BSA members experience isolation in the social and academic spheres. For
example, some of our members who are STEM majors have particularly felt that they are treated
as if they have a lot to prove and that students are less willing to collaborate with them. In social
science classes, our members have also described how certain opinions are ascribed to them
because of race.
8.
I am a pre-med major and I have experienced this isolation, particularly at the
beginning of a course. Sometimes, when I present an idea, it is ignored by other students until a
teaching fellow or a professor agree with me. That’s not something that’s new for me as a Black
student, but it is pretty pronounced in the first couple of weeks of a class before people know me
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as an individual. One thing that helped me maintain myself in these classes is the fact that there
were other Black students who I could lean on or speak to about these experiences. Having a
community of other Black students has been important to my academic wellbeing, particularly
during the first year.
9.
In the social sphere, dorm life can sometimes be isolating for Black students. In my
section of the dorm last year, there were about 25 students. There were four Asian American
students and the remainder were white. Some people considered our entryway very diverse; I did
not. I was the only Black girl in the section, and I was the only Black girl in my suite. There was
one Black boy in my section.
10.
Once, when I was styling my hair in my suite, some other girls walked in. When
they saw me unbraiding my hair, they screamed. They asked me a bunch of questions, such as “did
you cut your hair?” because they had never seen extension braids. They brought in other girls to
watch me. One said, “can you clean this up, this is dirty,” implying stereotypical ideas about Black
people that were very hurtful to me.
11.
During my freshman year, I would go to parties or to concerts on campus and see
groups of white people singing the N-word. Sometimes those groups included some of the guys
from the section of my dorm. I would then enter my dorm and hear songs containing the N-word
blasting out of their rooms. It was frustrating and isolating to me. I never was able to work up the
courage to start a conversation because the problem is so systemic, and I knew the pressure would
be on me to stay calm.
12.
During the 2017-2018 school year, one of my friends confided in me about an
experience that was a sobering reminder that college campuses are too often unsafe for Black
students. One night, my friend was walking from CVS back to her dorm. She began to hear some
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loud drunk people walking and singing behind her and she started to walk faster. She couldn’t hear
their entire conversation, but she did hear them say “Black person” multiple times. Then she heard
them say, “It’s a Black person! It’s a nigger, it’s a nigger.” In shock, my friend paused for a moment,
deciding whether to confront them and stand up for herself. However, they quickened their pace and
started chanting, “Hey nigger, come be our slave, come be our nigger slave.” At this point she was
scared and ran back to her dorm. She told me this story the next day. This deeply upsetting incident
had obviously weighed heavily on her and had impacted her ability to focus on work. Her story shows
how important it is for Black students not to be isolated. The bleak reality is that without a critical mass
of Black people on campus, students like my friend would be left feeling more isolated and helpless
than before.
13.
In April 2018, there was an incident of police brutality against a Black Harvard
student by Cambridge police. It served as yet another reminder that college campuses can be unsafe
for Black students. In response, BSA held town halls and meetings to support students who were
upset by this incident. It was a significant academic and emotional stress for many Black students
at Harvard. Students at that time should have been only worried about studying for finals. Instead,
we were also fearing for our safety on campus. We were given really shallow excuses to justify
the beating of this Black kid and the reasons that Harvard police could not adequately take care of
the situation without external support.
14.
When the incident happened, I had just been elected Vice President of BSA and a lot
of responsibility was put on our board. The President of BSA called me to say that we needed to write
a statement. I had to go to many meetings about the incident, trying to figure out what we could do. I
saw my Black peers stressed out and crying, struggling to figure out how to continue to go on with
their day. At the same time, we were under a lot of pressure to study for finals. If I had to relive that
next year or during the following years, it would be horrible. The planning and responsibility required
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to respond to issues of racial discrimination takes away from our chance to just be regular college
students.
15.
The police brutality incident provides a prime example of why there needs to be a
critical mass of Black students on campus. If Harvard’s Black students were limited to just me and
a few others to deal with all of that, it would have been much more challenging to organize a
response and provide support for each other. A reduction in Black students on campus would be
very damaging for us.
16.
At Harvard, Room 13 provides a space where students go to talk about feelings
anonymously. With everything going on, I decided to seek mental health support. There were two
white students there. They were good listeners, but as I was telling them about the police brutality
incident and other issues dealing with race, I could see the shock on their faces. Their eyes were
filled with sympathy, but their lack of knowledge made me more agitated about the entire situation.
17.
When I returned to my dorm, I saw my roommates who were not Black enjoying
their evening, unaware of what had happened. During that entire incident, my entryway was having
an ice cream social. After experiencing the intense reaction of BSA students, not having the rest
of the college even acknowledge the incident for a full 24 hours was frustrating to say the least.
My saving grace was my proctor, who sent out letters to our entire entryway telling everyone to
be sensitive and summarizing the incident. But then, when other students were talking about the
incident, some said “I agree with them arresting the student,” or “yeah, maybe he was threatening.”
Hearing the incident discussed in this way, while many of my Black peers have been stressed out
all weekend, added to my frustration.
18.
That same day as the incident, we had to go to a meeting with the Task Force on
Asian and Pacific American Studies about the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case. It
felt exhausting to be speaking about ending race conscious admissions while discrimination
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against Black students remained so blatant. This affirmative action case makes me angry because
the implication that race is irrelevant in our academic experience is just the height of ignorance in
my opinion. The BSA Board went through this challenging period right before finals.
19.
The Harvard administration needs to do more to support Black students and
students of color. Harvard has the office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, which Harvard uses
to determine what all multicultural students need. However, this one office is definitely not
sufficient. A lot of the planning to organize town halls and meetings is essentially done by Black
students for Black students. But supporting students in times of need should not fall solely on the
students; it is Harvard’s responsibility to make campus safe and accessible.
20.
Many organizations on campus have been trying to get a multicultural center at
Harvard—not just a center for Black students, but for all minority students. Despite widespread
support for a multicultural center, it has been difficult to get the support from the Harvard
administration, even though this conversation has been happening for years. In a place where a
Black student was beaten in the middle of the street, the Harvard administration has communicated
the message that they do not want to alienate white students by having a multicultural center and
are more concerned about whether those students feel uncomfortable or unsafe. Because we did
not have a physical multicultural center, Black students had nowhere to convene when the police
brutality incident occurred. Instead, we had to contact Black faculty to reserve a room, or we had
to have town halls off campus because BSA could not provide a space for students to come together
and organize.
21.
Despite not having a physical building, BSA has really done a lot to provide a space
where Black students feel comfortable. It provides support in a way that Harvard does not do, even
though some faculty and administrators try.
6
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.
Executed on this day, July 24, 2018.
/s/ Aba Sam
Aba Sam
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