Harvard Officials Wanted Harsher Discipline for Student Protesters, Report Shows

Top Harvard officials privately lambasted the College and graduate schools’ disciplinary committees for not imposing harsher penalties on students who participated in the pro-Palestine protests that rocked campus earlier this year, according to a congressional report released last month.

Even as Harvard administrators were publicly defending the punishments handed down by administrative boards, members of the University’s senior leadership had grown increasingly frustrated with the boards, which they viewed as ineffective, too autonomous, and overly deferential to student protesters.

The report, which was published by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, includes interviews, text messages, emails, and internal documents collected under subpoena as part of a nearly year-long investigation into campus antisemitism at Harvard.

As early as Nov. 6, 2023, before campus activists staged a 24-hour occupation of University Hall and a 20-day encampment in Harvard Yard, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 criticized the Ad Boards in a meeting of the Corporation — the University’s highest governing body.

Pritzker said she had been told by then-Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 that the administrative boards “won’t punish anyone,” according to meeting minutes.

“If you can make a plea to them, they will let you off,” Pritzker added.

“The Ad Boards are the problem,” Garber replied. “The deans don’t control those processes.”

Less than two weeks later, when a small group of pro-Palestine protesters staged an occupation of University Hall, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana — who chairs the Harvard College Administrative Board — told Garber over text that the students would receive a minimum of probation and could be asked to withdraw.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra went even further, telling Khurana over text that she believed “occupying a building equals suspension.”

24 hours after the protest began, nine student demonstrators calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war ended their occupation of University Hall. By Frank S. Zhou

The College Ad Board, however, did not suspend or place any of the eight undergraduate participants on probation. Instead, they were “admonished because of inappropriate social behavior,” according to disciplinary records submitted by Harvard to the committee.

During a transcribed interview with the committee in August, Pritzker acknowledged that the “uneven enforcement of the rules” has posed a major challenge for University administrators.

“The Corporation finds that unacceptable,” Pritzker said. “It’s not fair. It’s not right. And so it’s something that we have – have been very clear about with the people who need to now rectify this.”

“I don’t think it’s all fixed yet,” she added.

Though the University revised several of its protest and use of space rules, in addition to launching a standardized fact-finding procedure for disciplinary cases over the summer, the actual discipline handed down still remains up to the boards.

According to the committee, that fact has made several top administrators feel powerless to change the University’s disciplinary response to protests. And as Harvard remains at the center of national scrutiny, protest discipline has been treated by many observers as a stand-in for the University’s response to antisemitism.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that “antisemitism has no place on our campus, and across the university we have intensified our efforts to listen to, learn from, support, and uplift our Jewish community, affirming their vital place at Harvard.”

“At the same time, the university has taken steps to strengthen and clarify rules for use of campus spaces and disciplinary policies and procedures, as well as engage our community around civil dialogue to bridge divides,” Newton added. “This work is ongoing, and Harvard is fully committed to it and confident we are moving in the right direction.”

The next semester, when pro-Palestine student protesters staged an encampment in Harvard Yard to demand the University divest from Israel, administrators again agonized over how to respond.

Members of the pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard prepare to eat dinner as the sun sets. By Addison Y. Liu

While both Khurana and Garber threatened the students with discipline in a series of public statements, they vowed discipline would come later when the students appeared before the Ad Boards. In an attempt to force the group out before then, Garber chose a different strategy: placing more than 20 students on involuntary leaves of absence.

Four days later, early in the morning on May 14, Garber and the encampment protesters reached a deal after hours of late-night negotiations. The protesters would pack up their tents and leave the Yard while Garber would reinstate the students from involuntary leave, expedite their Ad Board cases, and arrange a meeting to discuss the University’s endowment.

In a University-wide message announcing the end of the encampment, Garber wrote that he would ask the boards to make disciplinary decisions “according to their existing practices and precedents.”

In her interview with the committee, Prizker said that the deal did not affect the University’s ability to impose disciplinary consequences aside from expediting the decisions.

“That’s what Alan explained to me,” Pritzker said. “And, in fact, I heard that. Remember, it’s 3 in the morning. I’m sound asleep. I’m on a freaking train. And I hung up the phone.”

“I called him back just to make sure I’d understood correctly,” Prizker added. “‘You didn’t agree to anything else?’ ‘No, I didn’t.’ Because I wanted to make sure that we were not — that these kids were still subject to disciplinary action.”

The next day, Harvard Medical School professor Jerome E. Groopman, a member of the presidential task force to combat antisemitism and member of Harvard Faculty for Israel, wrote to other members of the group to express concern that the agreement was “rewarding” the protesters and would “incentivize more violations.”

In a statement provided to The Crimson after the congressional report was released, task force co-chairs History professor Derek J. Penslar and HLS professor Jared A. Ellias wrote that their group has “the full support of the new Harvard administration.”

“There is no question that Harvard has been grappling with antisemitism, but also no question that the university central administration grasps the size of the problem,” they wrote.

After the end of the encampment, the College’s Ad Board suspended five students and placed more than 20 others on probation — preventing 13 seniors from graduating at the University’s Commencement ceremony.

The decision to discipline the students sparked fierce pushback from a group of faculty members that pushed through a resolution to add the 13 seniors back onto the list of degrees for conferral at a faculty meeting. The 11th-hour attempt to override the Ad Boards was rejected by the Corporation, which has final say over the degree conferrals.

But in her transcribed interview with the committee, Pritzker said that the University’s struggles with its Ad Boards largely stems from the membership of those committees — which are largely composed of faculty members at most Harvard schools.

“It starts with who you put on the ad boards and what is their attitude about accountability,” Pritzker told the committee.

—Staff writer Emma H. Haidar can be reached at emma.haidar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @HaidarEmma.

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles.