Over 70 anti-Israel student activists at Harvard University conducted a “study-in” at Widener Library, Harvard’s flagship library, for nearly three-and-a-half hours on October 29th.
The students were protesting Harvard President Alan Garber’s refusal to conduct a review of the University’s endowment. Garber previously wrote in an Oct. 3 email to Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), that Harvard “will not use its endowment funds to endorse a contested view on a complex issue that deeply divides our community,” according to The Harvard Crimson.
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“Garber’s definition of human rights stops at Palestine. His unwillingness to engage confirms he welcomes profits from any human rights abuses Harvard is complicit in,” HOOP responds in an Oct. 28 Instagram post.
It has been Harvard’s policy since its May 2024 “Report on Institutional Voice in the University,” to refrain from making public statements regarding issues that do not relate to its core function. Garber stated that “Using the endowment as an instrument to declare an institutional position” would undermine Harvard’s commitment to “maintaining an atmosphere open to such debate” in his Oct. 28 statement.
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In the couple weeks preceding the Oct. 29 study-in at Widener, students staged a similar study-in at the Harvard Law School Library. Administrators restricted their physical access to the Harvard Law School Library until November 7.
Twenty-five Harvard faculty members have also been suspended from Widener Library for two weeks following their study-in on Oct. 16.
The student organization responsible for the Oct. 29 study-in, HOOP, also organized a 20-day encampment on Harvard Yard that resulted in disciplinary action against many of its student leaders.
Thirteen of these student leaders were initially placed on academic probation and held from graduation. However, Harvard has since restored eleven of these students to good academic standing and granted degrees to eleven of these students.
Campus Reform has contacted Harvard University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
