Harvard University alumni and students accuse downtown Boston nightclub of racial bias
The Boston Globe
December 3, 2010
City Councilor Ayanna Pressley is calling for a city agency to investigate a complaint of racial bias at a new downtown Boston nightclub after a group of African-American students and alumni from Harvard and Yale said they were denied entry or ejected from a private function last weekend because security staff members felt they would attract criminals.
Although details of the incident at the Cure Lounge on Tremont Street remain sketchy, Michael Beal, a Harvard Business School student who organized the event, wrote in a widely circulated e-mail to friends that students and alumni were turned away from the event and club security shut down the establishment last Saturday night. He said club managers complained that a large group of young black men and women standing in line would attract “local gang bangers.’’ Beal did not respond to re quests for comment last night.
Pressley said in a phone interview yesterday that she had been contacted earlier this week by several Harvard students who told her they had been denied entry to the club. Because of that, she said, she has asked the city’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing to investigate the incident.
