Reported Attacks Spark Outrage

At a midafternoon rally in front of Tisch Library yesterday, more than 150 people, including students and professors, denounced the alleged attack on Riyadh Mohammed outside Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity early Saturday as another act of racism on a member of the Tufts community.

This academic year, swastikas have been splashed on doors, racial epithets against black women were posted on campus, and a gay student was assaulted by another Tufts student, students said.

Other area campuses also have been affected. In Cambridge, city and Harvard University police are investigating a report from a gay Harvard student who said two men beat him.

In an article published Monday in The Harvard Crimson, Galo Garcia III wrote about the attack he says he suffered over the weekend in Cambridge. According to Garcia, he had his arm around a male friend as they passed the Lampoon building on their way to a Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transsexual, and Supporters Alliance dance in Adams Hall, a campus dining area. A car with two men slowed down and called them a derogatory word used against gays, he wrote.

Garcia said he told them they ''should not make such remarks here" and stepped toward the car. The men then exited the vehicle, slammed his head against a wall, and punched him repeatedly, he wrote. ''I have cuts, bruises, and lumps on my chest, my back is sore, and a large area of my head is swollen and throbbing painfully," he wrote.

A Cambridge police spokesman, Sergeant James A. DeFrancesco, said the department and Harvard police are investigating a weekend assault, but declined to comment further. Criminal charges have not been filed in either the Harvard or the Tufts cases, authorities said yesterday.

At Tufts, Mohammed, the president of the Arab Student Association, could not be reached for comment.

Thomas Daniel McDermott, the group's incoming president, said Mohammed told him he was verbally assaulted while he and his girlfriend walked past the Curtis Street fraternity adjacent to the Tufts campus. Mohammed said the men overheard him saying he did not like the fraternity. Someone responded by calling him an Indian, and when he told them he was an Arab, someone called him a terrorist, McDermott said.

Mohammed then took his girlfriend home, but returned to the fraternity, where a second verbal exchange escalated into physical violence. Mohammed told McDermott he slipped into unconsciousness and awoke to find fraternity members trying to bring him inside the building while urging him not to call police. Mohammed told McDermott his attackers also called him a ''Saddam supporter" as they beat him.

Patrick Willis, president of the fraternity, said members are cooperating with the investigation and declined to comment further. He would not confirm a report that a freshman member of the fraternity has been kicked out because of his alleged role during the struggle with Mohammad.

At the rally yesterday, one student said the incident should not be forgotten. ''It doesn't matter who threw the first punch," said Caitlin McDonnell, a senior.

Bruce Reitman, Tufts dean of students, said the inquiry is ongoing and no conclusions have been reached. ''We've had these infrequently," he said. ''But we've had them, and there is no desire to sweep it under the carpet."