Associated Press - July 20, 2009 1:34 PM ET

BOSTON (AP) - 1 of the nation's pre-eminent black scholars has accused the Cambridge police of racism after being arrested trying to get into his own locked home near Harvard University.

Police say they were called to the home of Henry Louis Gates Jr. last Thursday after a woman reported seeing a man try to pry open the front door.

They say they ordered the man to identify himself, and Gates refused. According to a police report, Gates then called the officer a racist and said, "This is what happens to black men in America."

Police declined to comment Monday.

Gates referred comment to his lawyer, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, who did not immediately return a call.

Gates is the director of Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

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