Sullivan added that the law has significant psychological impacts that promote tragic outcomes, stating that “it provokes a frontiersman-like mentality in people.”

Benson concurred with Sullivan, noting the “dynamic between power and privilege.” He said that Zimmerman felt empowered by his position as a neighborhood watch volunteer and thus thought he had the right to act in a certain way.

Attitudes towards African Americans also played an important role in the Martin case, according to Sullivan, who cited figures that showed there is a statistically higher likelihood of white attackers being acquitted when the victim is African-American than when the victim is white.

“Blackness often serves as a crude proxy for criminality,” Sullivan said.

Differential attitudes toward minorities persist here at Harvard too, according to S. Allen Counter, a professor of neurology and director of the Harvard Foundation.

“What eludes our white friends is the concept of racial humiliation,” Counter said in an interview with The Crimson following the event. “They say things that they wouldn’t say to white colleagues.”

For Counter, the aim of these discussions and of the Harvard Foundation in general is to approach the issue of racial bias in the Harvard community in a “civil manner.” This series of panels on race and justice is just one example of the approach, he added.

“The Foundation wants to see a Harvard where students don’t have to be distracted by race,” Counter said.