Student says Harvard is wrongly linking her to campus murder

[siserune]

<p>

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the police who have the evidence about Campbell and why she was kicked off campus.

</p>

<p>If the police are the ones who uncovered the information I don’t think they would necessarily reveal it to the university unless it raises urgent concerns about safety or imminent crime. They might show Harvard a search warrant for the student’s room or otherwise seek help with the investigation in ways that can tip off the school. But I don’t think they would jeopardize the investigation by leaking information to Harvard administrators. </p>

<p>It’s also not clear how much Harvard did or should cooperate with the investigation. I don’t think students would like to learn that, in the event of trouble, the university has no qualms about providing adverse information to the police.</p>

[whatever4]

<p>Yes, siserune, Harvard should cooperature fully with the murder investigation and provide “adverse information” to the police if it is relevant and truthful. Wouldn’t Harvard students expect the university to do just that if it had been a Harvard student who was murdered?!</p>

<p>Murder is murder, and it occurred on Harvard’s campus. Any assistance/information that assists in the investigation should be provided to the police by Harvard.</p>

<p>Someone was murdered on Harvard’s campus – whether it was a Harvard s and Harvard It should not make any difference whether it was a Harvard student who was murdered or not.</p>

[siserune]

<p>I think it’s a delicate situation. The university has legal obligations to report some types of information to the police. It also has legal or extralegal fiduciary obligations to the students, including the one expelled from the campus. A lot of alumni and parents, not to mention current students, would not be happy at all if Harvard creates the perception of having gone out of its way (that is, above and beyond its basic legal obligations) to worsen the situation of the student in question. For instance, if Harvard’s actions are decisive in getting either of the women charged criminally, that would look very ugly indeed.</p>

[gagareppinnyc]

<p>

FWIW, I’ve heard Georgetown Law School is the place to go after your reputation at Harvard has been dragged through the mud.

</p>

<p>LOL…so true.</p>

[Northstarmom]

<p>" A lot of alumni and parents, not to mention current students, would not be happy at all if Harvard creates the perception of having gone out of its way (that is, above and beyond its basic legal obligations) to worsen the situation of the student in question. For instance, if Harvard’s actions are decisive in getting either of the women charged criminally, that would look very ugly indeed."</p>

<p>I’m an alum, and I’m also a parent of a college student (He’s not at Harvard).</p>

<p>I expect that Harvard and other universities to cooperate with police in investigations. I don’t want Harvard or other universities to cover up students’ crimes.</p>

<p>I can’t imagine what would be going above and beyond its legal obligation. If Harvard has information that could connect a student to a murder investigation, Harvard has every obligation to let the police know. It’s a public safety issue – including for the safety of the students on campus. </p>

<p>If the students end up being charged with crimes due to info that Harvard told the police, fine with me. I don’t want Harvard to be a place that shelters criminals. If it ends up that Harvard students were involved in criminal activity with gun toting, murdering drug dealers, then the Harvard students deserve whatever legal price they must pay for their own poor judgment.</p>

<p>" I don’t think students would like to learn that, in the event of trouble, the university has no qualms about providing adverse information to the police."</p>

<p>Only students who are idiots would have those kind of concerns, and Harvard isn’t known for having idiots in its student body.</p>

<p>The police aren’t the enemy. Students involved in criminal activities are dangers to others.</p>

<p>"If the police are the ones who uncovered the information I don’t think they would necessarily reveal it to the university unless it raises urgent concerns about safety or imminent crime. "</p>

<p>Not true. I’d bet that the police would talk to university officials if the police had evidence that a Harvard student was involved in criminal activity connected with a murder. Police also would talk to university officials about any student who seemed to have a connection with the murder. That would be part of the general investigation.</p>

[Loki5]

<p>OK–I am going to go out on a limb here—I am guessing that it is possible that the young lady in question has been directly implicated by a witness, perhaps Copney, in the incident. I am going to further suggest that it is possible that she, herself, has admitted, at some point, to involvement. That would be the type of evidence that might have resulted in being barred from participating in graduation. My further guess is that whatever evidence there was, it was more than circumstantial–perhaps cell phone records or recordings of phone calls.</p>

<p>I find the entire matter to be unbearably tragic, for everyone involved. </p>

<p>I also hate to say this, but aren’t the house masters supposed to be somewhat aware of drug trade/use within the houses? Hopefully students will understand the danger inherent in these transactions.</p>

[Northstarmom]

<p>"I also hate to say this, but aren’t the house masters supposed to be somewhat aware of drug trade/use within the houses? "</p>

<p>I believe that if house masters know about such things, they would be expected to take appropriate action to stop such transactions. I doubt, however, if people who are dealing drugs are doing it in a way that would be obvious to house masters.</p>

[Loki5]

<p>OK- maybe so. But its hard not to notice when people are smoking pot.</p>

[marite]

<p>Marijuana has been decriminalized in MA since last year. Drug dealing, however, remains a crime. The young woman is not tied to a case of pot-smoking; she is allegedly tied to a drug deal that led to murder.</p>

[Northstarmom]

<p>"
OK- maybe so. But its hard not to notice when people are smoking pot."</p>

<p>Do you think that students are dumb enough to smoke pot in front of the faculty? It’s not as if the house master is wandering around the dorms to sniff out pot smokers. House masters have their own living quarters that are part of the dorm, but not close enough that they would be able to smell pot.</p>

[wisteria]

<p>Back in the 1970s, the late Jim Vorenberg and his wife Betty were co-masters of Dunster House. At the time, he was a professor of criminal law at Harvard Law School (and he later went on to become the Dean of Harvard Law School.)</p>

<p>In an article for Harvard Magazine, Betty Vorenberg described how Jim handled an accidental discovery of evidence potentially tying a student in his house to illegal drug activity:</p>

<p>

One year a terrible fire broke out in the middle of the night in an entry. The Cambridge fire department came, all the residents were evacuated safely, and the firemen put out the blaze (which appeared to have started from a bedspread arranged over a ceiling light). About 2 a.m. we were sitting in the residence with the senior tutor, his wife, and a couple of other tutors, when the doorbell rang. It was a Cambridge policeman with a water pipe (for the uninitiated: a hookah-style contraption used for smoking marijuana).
The policeman clearly wanted to make an arrest, and Jim and the senior tutor encouraged him to walk out to Memorial Drive. The three of them talked with the others in the patrol car. I have no idea what argument Jim, a professor of criminal law, put forth, but I imagine it was a complicated presentation of search and seizure rules and precedents, and he prevailed. The cops left. Jim and the senior tutor crossed Memorial Drive and threw the incriminating evidence in the Charles. The first toss did not make it in, so they had to search the ground in the dark, find the water pipe, and finally get it into the river. We all ended up sitting in our kitchen drinking whiskey, happy that everyone was safe and wondering what would happen next

</p>

<p>[Mastering</a> in the '70s | Harvard Magazine](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/09/mastering-in-the-70s.html]Mastering”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/09/mastering-in-the-70s.html)</p>

<p>What is not entirely clear from the anecdote is whether careless use of the hookah smoking device had somehow been partially or indirectly responsible for the fire (with consequences which could potentially have been tragic, though apparently noone was injured.)</p>

<p>In any case, the anecdote does gives some insight into how at least one Harvard master saw his responsibility for protecting students from a police inquiry.</p>

[wisteria]

<p>Another quote from Betty Vorenberg’s article about mastering in Dunster House in the 70s:</p>

<p>

Each fall we invited the tutors for a supper at which Jim delivered his annual admonition, what came to be known as the “no sex or drugs” rule: tutors were not to have sex with the undergraduates nor were they to “do” drugs with them. The senior tutor had informed us that at least 90 percent of the students smoked marijuana, and Jim felt it was too much of a challenge to put a stop to that, so he compromised. The tutors did not have to leave parties if drugs were being used, but they were not to participate. He was flying a little bit by the seat of his pants here, for it was a new experience.

</p>

<p>At the time that housemaster and law professor Jim Vorenberg was giving this rather off-the-cuff advice to the house tutors, he was also commuting to Washington DC one day a week to work under Archibald Cox on the Watergate investigation.</p>

[smoda61]

<p>Interesting history but that is history and does not necessarily relate to current policies at Harvard. The 70s inclusive were over 30 years ago. Since there have been many societal changes outside of Harvard during that time, I see no reason why changes would not have occurred within Harvard.</p>

[compmom]

<p>I still find the term “drug dealer” a little dramatic for marijuana. I know of many white, suburban kids who are selling drugs, and do not get called “drug dealers.” In our school, a white senior girl (honor roll, prominent parents) was caught with large amounts of a variety of drugs, including downers, cocaine, and marijuana (I forget what else) and almost nothing happened to her (court appearance, classes on drugs) and she is now at a state university. I don’t think the stigma of “drug dealer” was ever attached to what she was doing.</p>

<p>I read somewhere, a few years back, that drug use is actually much higher in wealthy suburbs than in minority inner city areas. But in this case, since all concerned were minorities, the whole thing is presented as a sort of tough, South Bronx-style “drug deal” rather than the mundane transaction that happens everyday, everywhere.</p>

<p>These kids were not without goals or opportunities, either. Copney was a graduate of LaGuardia, a highly selective arts school right next to Juilliard, and was apparently having some commercial success, or at least was about to have some commercial success.</p>

<p>I would think it would be possible for the Harvard female students to be hanging out with Copney, and to know the victim (who went to Cambridge Rindge and Latin and might know Harvard students socially) without this whole thing being viewed as an intrusion of the Bed-Stuy/SouthBronx etc. criminal world into Campbell’s new Harvard world (as the Globe put it this morning).</p>

<p>All kinds of students are obtaining and using marijuana. As I have said, my kids tell me you could get it in 5 minutes at any high school.</p>

<p>This is all about the gun, not the drugs. In some ways, the whole picture just does not make sense. These were successful kids, all of them (except the victim, who seemed to have been struggling to stay in school, but perhaps because of family responsibilities). This is not a group that one would expect to be involved with guns and murder.</p>

<p>Isn’t it possible that the girls did not know that Copney had a gun? I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Whether or not Harvard can penalize Campbell because of the drug tie, I wouldn’t know, but it would be ridiculous in light of the amazingly extensive availability and use of marijuana among young people (and, yes, it is now decriminalized).</p>

<p>There must be more to the whole situation, and speculation is not going to enlighten us (although I am doing it again).</p>

<p>One other point from the Globe article today: Harvard admissions loves kids who “overcame obstacles” whether socioeconomic or family tragedy or health. The college needs to do a better job of supporting these kids once there.</p>

[Momwaitingfornew]

<p>Even if the girls did not know that Copney had a gun, they can still be arrested for murder if they participated in the plan that resulted in the death. I’m sure that the shooter gets more time if convicted, but even a lesser murder charge (accomplice? I don’t know) is serious. </p>

<p>I think it all goes back to how Copney gained entry.</p>

[Momwaitingfornew]

<p>Does anyone know if the girlfriend is still at Harvard?</p>

[marite]

<p>I don’t think that one pound of marijuana is small potatoes.
The last drug related college story I read involved a couple of NEU freshmen who, as they were unpacking, yelled out through their open window that they had drug for sale. Unfortunately for them, there were a couple of policemen walking underneath that window. They found much less than one pound of marijuana in the room. The two would-be students were promptly arrested. Their career at NEU had not lasted past that first week.
We don’t know what the exact reasons for Campbell’s being booted out of Harvard are. But I think that it is useful to distinguish between drug use and drug dealing. Crosby was involved in drug dealing.
This reminds me that he graduated the same year as another CRLS graduate who was also involved in drug dealing and was also murdered at age 19 a few years ago.</p>

[Momwaitingfornew]

<p>"The last drug related college story I read involved a couple of NEU freshmen who, as they were unpacking, yelled out through their open window that they had drug for sale. "</p>

<p>Clearly not the brightest of the admitted class. :)</p>

[JHS]

<ol>
<li><p>I would be surprised if Jim Vorenberg’s balance isn’t still the balance at Harvard houses.</p></li>
<li><p>The suburban girl was a drug dealer. Who would call it anything but that? The problem is that not enough stigma attaches to being a suburban drug dealer.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know if students in affluent suburbs do MORE drugs than students in the inner city, in the aggregate, but I believe that drug use is more universal among students in affluent suburbs, where essentially no stigma attaches to drug use, than in the inner city, where it’s almost a good-vs.-evil proposition.</p></li>
<li><p>Is there any whiff here that Copney may have been acting as Campbell’s muscle, warning Crosby to stop poaching on her market? THAT would get her expelled about as fast as she got expelled.</p></li>
</ol>

[smoda61]

<p>I also remember the NEU story. I remember being rather amused at how stupid those individuals were.</p>

<p>

I still find the term “drug dealer” a little dramatic for marijuana.

It is the correct term. I think there is value to proper vocabulary. I speculate that part of why the student at “your school” was not labeled had more to do with her age. High schools are very careful, as is the entire legal system, about protecting the reputation of minors. Two stories I will share. One was this year at our high school. A “friend” of my daughter stole several hundred dollars in money (some money was from my daughter) and personal affects from fellow students. This girl, in part due to my daughter, was caught. The school has never openly admitted she was the one. Though the entire school knows it was her. She was seen in the vice principals office that day, seen in the principal’s office w/ her parents next day and then she was suspended. Yet, her reputation is being protected. Second story was a group of teenage boys were pranking our neighborhood repeatedly for a few weeks (ding dong ditch). On a particular night, because of myself and a neighbor, the boys were caught. Quite literally for one of them, my neighbor (a lawyer) chased one down. I was out there also. The police were called. I asked to know the names of the individuals since is appeared that my daughter and the neighbor’s daughter were the targets of the pranks and I wanted to be able to watch for problems in the school. I was told that then names could not be provided to me because they were minors. They would not even repeat the name to me of the boy who was physically in front of me after being caught and who’s name had already heard that night.</p>

<p>Point is adults and minors are handled differently, and that is probably the cause of your school dancing around labeling your drug dealing student not the reasons that you are speculating.</p>

<p>

All kinds of students are obtaining and using marijuana. As I have said, my kids tell me you could get it in 5 minutes at any high school.

Wow, you make it sound like this makes it right. I know my daughter has been aware of many students in HS that cheat and get away with it. That does not mean that that is a good choice or that she should participate.</p>

<p>

One other point from the Globe article today: Harvard admissions loves kids who “overcame obstacles” whether socioeconomic or family tragedy or health. The college needs to do a better job of supporting these kids once there.

In what way it Harvard not supporting them?</p>