As Harvard University workshops its image in the wake of criticisms over its handling of antisemitism on its Boston campus, the Ivy League college has suspended a group of students for staging a pro-Palestine “pray-in” last week in the Harvard Divinity School’s library.
During the event, reported on by The Harvard Crimson, the school’s student-run newspaper, more than 55 graduate students demanded Harvard “divest from Israel’s war in Gaza and end censorship on campus.”
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The protest seemingly centered on calls from left-leaning students who have condemned the Harvard Management Company (HMC), the entity responsible for managing the school’s endowment, for alleged investments in organizations with ties to Israel.
In March of this year, the Harvard Law School’s Student Council voted 12-4 (with three abstentions) to pass a resolution calling on the HMC to “divest completely from weapons manufacturers, firms, academic programs, corporations, and all other institutions” that purportedly benefit Israel in some way.
Two members of the student government resigned following the vote. When they resigned, the pair said they left the board because they “strongly disagree with the resolution.”
Last Monday, the group of students staged a “pray-in” that lasted about 45 minutes before it was broken up and participants were suspended for violating a university-wide policy intended “to prevent students from feeling unsafe or distracted in spaces like libraries and classrooms.”
In her email announcing the suspensions, Harvard Divinity School Dean Marla F. Frederick said she understands the “importance of prayer.”
“At HDS we honor the importance of prayer and what it represents for so many,” wrote the dean. “And, as one colleague reminded us recently, ‘prayer is protest.’ In and of itself, advocacy for the cause of people under duress — whether in Israel, Gaza, or other parts of the world — is noble.”
One of the student participants, Stephanie Tabashneck, called Frederick’s actions “inconceivable.”
“There’s a serious tension there between the ideals that HDS purports to uphold and the consequences that they impose on students who are living out these very ideals,” she said. “Harvard doesn’t support free speech. And I say this as someone who is Jewish and both concerned about antisemitism and concerned about the genocide of the Palestinian people.”
All of this comes amidst a cloud of controversy for Harvard.
In January of this year, now-former Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned, according to CBN News, after she was unable to state unequivocally during a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., that calls on campus for the genocide of Jewish people would, in fact, violate the school’s conduct policy.
At the time, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, questioned Gay, asking the embattled university leader, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment? Yes or no?” In response, Gay said, “It can be, depending on the context.”
Gay, who also faced significant allegations of plagiarism, later apologized, telling The Harvard Crimson, “What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged.”
You can read more about that here.
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