WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama has not decided whether the arrest of a black Harvard professor was a case of racial profiling, his spokesman said Sunday.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said Obama hasn't "come down on one side of that or the other."
Last week's arrest of professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., at his home in Cambridge, Mass., was initially criticized by the president as "stupid" after prefacing the remark by saying he didn't know all the facts of the case. Obama has since backtracked and has invited Gates and the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, to the White House.
"I think (racial profiling is) an issue that the president has worked on and been concerned about," Gibbs said. "I don't think the president has come down on one side of that or the other. Again, I think he would tell you he doesn't know all the details of this."
But, Gibbs added, "if what we can do is bring Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley together to discuss some of the issues and the events that surrounded that day in Cambridge … I think we'll all be a little bit better off."
