"I'm hoping that we don't define race relations in terms of conflict anymore. We should define it in terms of cooperation," Dauber said.
In the introduction to the film and during the panel discussion, Jackson said the forum represented a positive step towards cooperation among all ethnic and religious groups.
"We must put the ethical above the ethnic because the ethnic is so particular, while the ethical is universal," Jackson said in his remarks which many have said strengthened the impact of the discussion.
"Ignorance leads to fear, fear to hatred, hatred to violence," Jackson said, stressing the need for understanding and education. "There must be some commitment to teaching a common base of good information."
DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates, Jr. also said after the program that successful Black-Jewish relations will require understanding of the Black and Jewish sensitivities, like anti-Semitic and anti-Black remarks.
"Getting the source of our problems wrong is an obstacle for setting them right," Gates told the crowd.
Ogletree said Gates is planning conferences for this year to build on the gains made Monday night.
Acting Hillel Director Rabbi Saliv A. Einestone said she thought the panel "realistically laid out the challenges both groups face" and that the speeches by Ogletree, Gates and Jackson "gave backing to what we've been saying all along."
Former Hillel chair Shai A. Held 94 said Black Jewish relations have come to symbolize face relations between all ethnic and religious groups. Using Black Jewish relations as the springboard for discussion between other groups may burden the start of the open discussion between the two communities.
And though student leaders have touted discussion as a "new phase" in Black Jewish relations, there has been no communication between the BSA and Hillel since the panel discussion Monday.
Dauber called for the end of "Rolodex diplomacy" race relations, with communications bridged solely between the heads of the organizations. He also said the Hillel inter-ethnic committee will likely start talks with various ethnic groups on campus in addition to the BSA.
"I certainly hope we will be able to follow up the panel with more dialogue," Dauber said. "It marks a new phase of the relationship, or at least an old phase made new."
Required Reading
Harvard has made it onto the pages of GQ magazine once again. This time, however, the monthly publication is not scrutinizing the sex lives of young Harvardians, but the troubles at the Law School.
The article, "Beirut on the Charles," by John Sedgwick, examines problems, such as the allegations of racism and sexism at the Harvard Law REview, the ongoing grassroots student movement for increased faculty diversity and the past controversial parody of slain Professor Mary Joe frug's feminist writings.
"Ever since the Paper Chase, the John Jay Osborn Jr. novel, and the subsequent movie and TV show, and more especially SCott Turow's harrowing ONe L, students have probably been prepared to have their egos cracked by the academic rigors of the place. Of course, it can still be a little startling to be spattered by vomit from an unstrung classmate during an exam, as happened to one student long ago.
"But that's nothing compared to the stress fractures caused by the school's heavy politics, which have pitted faculty members against faculty members, faculty member against students and, perhaps most viciously of all, students against student. Relations have broken down so completely that Dean Clark recently appointed Professor Emeritus Roger Fisher, the famed negotiator who has attempted to reconcile Kuwait and Iraq, to act as a kind of marriage counselor for the law school 'community'."
The article does not hesitate to outline the troubles plaguing the country's second-best law school, second only to its rival down I-95 in New Haven. "Instead of directly decrying the ruling class, the students pick at its racism, sexism and homophobia-Harvard Law's holy trinity," the article states.
Holy Trinity? Holy triviality, Batman, say several Law School students. Marie-Louise Ramsdale, president of the Law School Council, criticized the article, saying it treated lightly the issue of faculty diversity and whit it was the source of friction.
But will any of them become libel lawyers?