CAMBRIDGE, Mass.  Police officers who arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. responded to charges of racism today, saying that Gates had a James Taylor album, a batik print and other evidence of illicit drug use in open view when they entered his apartment.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"We used our best judgment under the circumstances," said Reporting Officer James Crowley.  "Anybody who still has that album in their collection after all these years is either a lonely white chick or a dopehead, so we drew the obvious conclusion, it being Mr. Gates."

James Taylor:  Recovering monobrow folksinger.

Gates accused police of racial profiling and the charges were ultimately dropped, but lawyers specializing in discrimination cases said the distinguished scholar would have a hard time recovering damages from law enforcement officers.  "A James Taylor album, a batik print, these are telltale signs of the drughead subculture that is rife in Harvard Square," said Jeffrey Ehngstrom, a sole practitioner who specializes in police brutality claims.  "Throw in 'The Harder They Come'," the seminal reggae album, "and your case is dismissed."

The Harder They Come:  There's a copy in every Cambridge apartment.

Taylor is a white folk singer who tried to pass for black when he recorded a cover version of the Inez and Charlie Foxx hit "Mockingbird" with his then-wife Carly Simon.  Music critics were not fooled, and the Taylors subsequently divorced when their ruse was discovered.

Inez and Charlie Foxx

Gates locked himself out of his apartment, a common symptom of drug use, and was reported to Cambridge, Mass. police by Lucia Whalen, circulation and fundraising manager for the Harvard alumni magazine.  "We like to report faculty accomplishments," noted Oliver Westcott, the magazine's editor.  "I'd say busting down your own back door is every bit as newsworthy as writing some boring article with about a hundred footnotes."