Dissent: Activists Broke the Rules. I’m Glad Harvard Enforced Them.

On Friday, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee organized a demonstration in Harvard Yard. Yesterday afternoon, the organization was suspended.

Why? The PSC blatantly and repeatedly violated the College’s student organization guidelines, neglecting to register the protest and co-sponsoring the rally with several unrecognized student groups.

Today, the Editorial Board acknowledges these obvious transgressions yet condemns the suspension, arguing that the University should turn a blind eye in order to preserve its student activism. According to the Board, the PSC is the exception to the rule; it is above the law.

What good is a rule that isn’t consistently enforced? Which other rules should we also ignore? The fact of the matter is that students and student groups cannot be allowed to violate University policies with impunity.

The PSC’s suspension didn’t come out of nowhere. The rule banning events co-sponsored with unrecognized student groups was put in place long before Oct. 7. And the PSC knew this was coming: In March, the organization was placed on probation for violating College guidelines.

They were warned, they knew the consequences, and they continued to break the rules anyway. Harvard followed the proper sequence of recourse — first probation, then, after the flagrant violations continued, suspension.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I support free speech. But as our own precedent articulates, it isn’t a free speech violation to regulate the time, place, and manner of protests. And freedom of speech isn’t a blank check. The PSC made a choice to repeatedly ignore Harvard’s rules. They shouldn’t be surprised when the University responds.

Ultimately, Harvard must learn from the chaos at Columbia University, Yale University, and New York University in the past few days. We have seen that unchecked student activism can lead to vitriol, violence, and vandalism, not to mention a total breakdown of the smooth functioning of the university — Columbia even had to shift to hybrid learning for the remainder of the semester.

Harvard’s protest guidelines help ensure that a similar debacle doesn’t happen here, too. Prohibiting on-campus demonstrations co-sponsored with unregistered groups helps avoid the involvement of bad actors from outside our community, a problem that Columbia and NYU both faced this weekend. Similarly, requiring protests to be registered ensures that University administrators can coordinate effectively, preventing demonstrations from getting out of hand.

The Editorial Board may doubt the effectiveness of these rules at de-escalating tensions. But the alternative — allowing student groups to run roughshod over campus in flagrant violation of the rules — is a surefire recipe for chaos. By enforcing its protest guidelines, Harvard can better manage protests, preventing them from escalating the way they did at Columbia over the weekend and avoiding having to call in the police.

Harvard has rules. For the safety of our community, it must enforce them. Yesterday, the University made the right call.

Rohan Nambiar ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Apley Court.

Dissenting Opinions: Occasionally, The Crimson Editorial Board is divided about the opinion we express in a staff editorial. In these cases, dissenting board members have the opportunity to express their opposition to staff opinion.