Arrested Professor Used To Teach at Cornell

Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard (Sucks) professor whose recent arrest has been making headlines today, used to teach at Cornell.

Gates, 58, was arrested July 16 after shouting at a police sergeant, “This is what happens to black men in America,” the Cambridge Police Department report said. A woman had called the police to Gates’s home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harvard is located, saying a man was trying to force open the door with his shoulder, according to Officer Carlos Figueroa’s report.

Gates taught at Cornell from 1985-1989, arriving in Ithaca after being denied tenure at Yale. He then taught at Duke from 1989-1991 and started at HA+rvA+rd in 1991. It's unclear why Cornell didn't hold onto him, and the move from Cornell to Duke seems quite lateral (although he did move from Duke to Hahvahd).

In the typical Harvard fashion, Gates has accumulated meaningless honors:

He has received 49 honorary degrees, from institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, New York University, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Williams College, Emory University, Howard University, University of Toronto, and the University of Benin.

(Boston Globe / Bloomberg / Cambridge Comm. Coll.)