On July 16, 2009, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home by local police officer Sgt.

The arrest occurred just after Gates returned home to Cambridge after a trip to China to research the ancestry of Yo-Yo Ma for Faces of America.

Accounts regarding the ensuing confrontation differ, but Gates was arrested by the responding officer, Cambridge Police Sgt.

[4] On July 24, Obama invited both parties to the White House to discuss the issue over a beer, and on July 30, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden joined Crowley and Gates in a private, cordial meeting in a courtyard near the White House Rose Garden; this became known colloquially as the "Beer Summit".

[6] There are multiple published accounts of the subsequent events which led to the arrest of Gates, including the police report,[1] interviews with Sgt.

Crowley explained he was investigating the report of a break-in in progress; as he did so, Gates opened the front door and said, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?

When told that Crowley was a police officer investigating a reported breaking and entering, Gates replied that it was his house, and he was a Harvard faculty member.

[12] In an interview published in The Root on July 21, Gates said that when Crowley first asked him to step outside onto the porch, "the way he said it, I knew he wasn't canvassing for the police benevolent association.

Gates called the references to loud and tumultuous behavior in the police report a "joke"; he had been physically incapable of yelling at the time, due to a severe bronchial infection.

Crowley stated in the police report that when he arrived at the scene, he spoke to Whalen, who told him she had "observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks" trying to force entry.

[15][16] Whalen was hurt by widespread comments labeling her a racist, based on the "two black males with backpacks" quote in the police report.

Public interest in the arrest grew when newspapers published the photograph showing a handcuffed Gates being escorted away from the front door.

The Mayor of Cambridge, E. Denise Simmons, suggested that the incident was a "teachable moment" and that she hoped there would be meaningful dialogue between Mr. Gates, the police force, and the general public.

[6][26][27] The Reverend Al Sharpton discussed the incident and referred to it as one of "police abuse or racial profiling", calling it "outrageous" and "unbelievable.

While working as a campus police officer at Brandeis University in 1993, Crowley had tried to revive African American Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after the latter suffered a fatal heart attack.

He described Gates's behavior as "contempt of cop" which officers are supposed to handle as speech protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (cf.

Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay College, told the Time reporter that disorderly conduct is "probably the most abused statute in America.

In his analysis, even if the prosecution could prove all of the disputed factual allegations in Crowley's report, Massachusetts case law does not consider offensive and abusive language to be disorderly conduct per se, and they would be unlikely to prevail in court.

[38] Attorney Harvey A. Silverglate suggested that the charges were dropped because Gates would almost certainly have prevailed in court with a First Amendment defense, an outcome that would have severely curtailed future arrests for disorderly conduct in "contempt of cop" situations.

[35] In an interview with CNN, Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman offered opinions on both sides of the incident.

"[48] Upon learning of the incident, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis immediately stripped Barrett of his badge and gun, put him on administrative leave, and scheduled a termination hearing.

The DUA board's decision would be affirmed or reversed four times, the last being on July 15, 2013, when the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled that his "egregious misconduct" was "obviously intentional.

"[55] During a July 22 news conference concerning health care reform, columnist Lynn Sweet, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, asked President Barack Obama "Recently, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge.

Preston further warned that "by reducing all contact between law enforcement and the public to the color of their skin or ethnicity is, in fact, counter-productive to improving relationships.

[62] Republican congressman Thaddeus McCotter said he would introduce a resolution in the House of Representatives calling on the president to apologize to Crowley.

[65] Congressman Steve King drew unfavorable attention to himself when he remarked, during a radio interview, that "The president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race that favors the black person, in the case of Professor Gates and Officer (James) Crowley.

[68][69] Upon accepting, Gates stated in an email to The Boston Globe that "My entire academic career has been based on improving race relations, not exacerbating them.

[71] Steve Killion, president of the Cambridge patrol officers association, also stated "I'm absolutely pleased with [Obama's call].

"[78] In an interview with The New York Times, Gates further commented on the meeting, "I don't think anybody but Barack Obama would have thought about bringing us together [...] the president was great – he was very wise, very sage, very Solomonic."

When asked what he would do with the handcuffs, Gates stated that he plans to donate them to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.