As Cornell prepares to celebrate the 5th anniversary of its Statement on Diversity and Inclusion: Open Doors, Open Hearts, and Open Minds, The Cornell American (September 2005; Vol. 8, No. 2) has once more crossed the line with a scurrilous story that violates the call for "constructive engagement without degrading, abusing, harassing, or silencing others." The story by Chris Menzel is blatant in its distortions and gross generalizations. He tries to make a case based on faulty evidence and spurious logic that "blacks are more violent then (sic) whites." He offers charts to demonstrate that blacks are arrested more frequently than whites. It is a given that black males are arrested more frequently than white males, but it does not follow that black males are more violent. According to Human Rights Watch, black youth are six times more likely to be locked up than white youth charged with similar crimes and with similar criminal records. This is the case because when white women like Susan Smith in South Carolina decide to drown their children, they blame it on a black man. Or when white men like Jesse Anderson in Milwaukee and Charles Stuart in Boston decide to kill their wives, they say that black men did it.

Menzel not only distorts the facts, he simply gets them wrong. He reports that "the horrific murder of a black man who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck shocked the nation … those men responsible were dealt with the most appropriate way: they were put to death." If he had checked his so-called facts, a minimum standard of decent journalism, he would have discovered that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice still houses Lawrence Russell Brewer and John William King on death row. They were convicted of lynching James Byrd and were sentenced to death but have yet to be executed. Menzel warns the campus to "watch out for gangs of black thugs." His warning is disingenuous. Given his deliberate effort to stigmatize African Americans, his advice, especially to carry guns, rings hollow. Crime, in whatever color, must be addressed and the perpetrators punished. Hasty, erroneous, and sweeping generalizations like Menzel's serve more to incite bigotry than to solve the problem.

-- Robert L. Harris Jr., vice provost for diversity and faculty development

Editor's note: Harris refers to an article, "The Color of Cornell's Crime -- Unmasking the Face of Ithacompton" by Chris Menzel, that appeared in the September issue of The Cornell American, an independent conservative journal that is distributed free on campus.