In his first public appearance since the "Beer Summit" at the White House, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates joked about his controversial arrest last month in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and said he likes police Sgt. James Crowley. "I offered to get his kids into Harvard if he doesn't arrest me anymore," Gates said. Gates was speaking Sunday at the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival where he signed copies of his book, "In Search of our Roots." The professor ...

Many Latinos say they know how Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates felt during a recent arrest because they believe police often racially profile Hispanics, too. The Human Rights Unit of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan announced it recorded 1,013 civilian deaths in Afghanistan during the first six months of this year. That compares to 818 Afghan civilians who were killed during the same period in 2008, while 684 civilians were killed during the first half of 2007. ...

It may have been the most famous "happy hour" in modern American history. The U.S. president, a policeman and a professor had beers together this week, after an escalating incident that reminded America race still matters. The police officer is Sgt. James Crowley, a well-regarded white patrolman in the college town of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Was Obama right to become involved in dispute The professor is African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University, who is also one of ...

One of the most telling, and overlooked, aspects of the brouhaha over the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the particular cast of Gates' defenders. There was Deval Patrick, the fresh-faced black governor of Massachusetts, who called the arrest "every black man's nightmare." There was Vernon Jordan, noting that the event "tells us that the election of Barack Obama did not automatically erase racism." There was former Congressman Harold Ford, moderate to a fault, passionately insisting that once ...

President Obama will sit down for a beer at the White House Thursday night with a top African-American professor and the policeman who arrested him earlier this month. The arrest, in response to reports of a possible break-in at the home of Harvard academic Henry Louis Gates Jr., sparked a national debate about race, class and police attitudes towards minorities. Obama himself quickly got involved, saying at a news conference that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, acted "stupidly." His comment itself ...

A Boston, Massachusetts, police officer who sent a mass e-mail in which he referred to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as "banana-eating" and a "bumbling jungle monkey" has been placed on administrative leave and faces losing his job.

A Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer said Thursday he will "never apologize" about how he handled the arrest of prominent black Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. "That apology will never come from me as Jim Crowley, it won't come from me as sergeant in the Cambridge Police Department," Sgt. James Crowley told Boston radio station WEEI. "Whatever anybody else chooses to do in the name of the city of Cambridge or the Cambridge Police Department which are beyond my ...

President Obama said that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in arresting a prominent black Harvard professor last week after a confrontation at the man's home. "I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played," Obama said Wednesday night while taking questions after a White House news conference. Cambridge authorities dropped disorderly conduct charges against Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Tuesday. Obama defended Gates on Wednesday night, while admitting that he may ...