With New Protest Restrictions, Harvard Leans Into Hypocrisy

Twenty-twenty four has become the year of discourse about discourse at Harvard.

From the College-wide Intellectual Vitality Initiative to University leaders’ persistent emails calling for open dialogue, Harvard has spent the last year talking about the tone and tenor of campus conversations.

But how much of this talk is hot air?

After the University’s announcement of new restrictions on campus protest including overnight camping, unapproved signage, and — most absurdly — chalking, it seems like all the chatter about open dialogue was just that — talk.

Harvard’s leaders had a chance to put their proclaimed commitment to civil discourse into practice last spring when students participated in protests, voicing their beliefs. Instead they faltered, suspending students, placing others on probation, and even denying some seniors their degrees.

After facing criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and the school’s own Faculty Council, rather than backtracking, the University has dug in its heels with this flurry of new protest restrictions that fail to create any new forums for difficult conversations.

Sure, the new policies are technically within the purview of the University. But the operative question isn’t can they restrict protest — it is should they?

And as a Board whose primary lodestar is free speech, we have no choice but to decry these new regulations as highly hypocritical and downright draconian.

Will the Ad Board schedule a hearing for the next child who draws a hopscotch grid in the Yard? Or for the next club leader who posts a comp flier without prior approval?

Of course, they will not, but that’s precisely the point. These new restrictions — seemingly unprecedented in their breadth — will not be enforced in a content-neutral manner. Administrators’ ire will be reserved for those messages they deem divisive alone.

That leaves us with a pressing question for Harvard’s administration — if students cannot organize protests, hold signs, or even draw messages in chalk, what modes of speech are left?

Shall they organize panels where scholars can discuss salient issues in an academic setting?

It appears not: Last March, a Lowell House panel on Islamophobia and antisemitism was canceled after University sponsors backed out at the first sign of controversy.

Maybe students can email administrators about changes they want to see?

They tried that. But in a Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting in May, Provost John F. Manning ’82 reported that President Alan M. Garber ’76 was simply unaware of the messages he received from students and faculty hoping to engage in dialogue.

If Harvard is serious about civil discourse, there are plenty of places to start. The University can create new classes, launch new research initiatives, support panels, and foster spaces for student discussion.

Not to mention, respond to the chilling effect of doxxing with a little bit more haste than an 11-month delay.

The University would also be wise to look at its own precedents when responding to large-scale student protests. In recent memory, demonstrations similar to the recent pro-Palestine encampment — the anti-Apartheid shantytown, the Living Wage Campaign’s occupation of Massachusetts Hall, and Occupy Harvard’s tent city — apparently never resulted in punishments as severe as those meted out this spring.

That hands-off approach benefitted the entire Harvard community, upholding students’ ability to speak freely on campus.

Not only does a lenient posture towards protest protect speech, it also enhances conversations around campus — from those sympathetic to the cause to those who oppose it. The encampment ignited dorm room and dining hall discussions that would not have occurred otherwise. Allowing peaceful protests to proceed serves Harvard’s educational mission far more effectively than emails with a headline about intellectual vitality.

It’s also not just about education: Demonstrators have historically served as Harvard’s moral compass.

Student protests in 1968 led to the creation of Harvard’s world-class African and African American Studies program. Protests in the 1980s and ’90s forced partial divestment from South African Apartheid. And student labor organizing over the last several years secured new benefits for the University’s graduate students.

Of course, protesters aren’t exempt from punishment. The University is within its rights to enforce sensible time, place, and manner restrictions. But the most recent slew of restrictions cross from reasonable to repressive.

Harvard has no trouble talking about civil discourse. The new protest restrictions suggest the University has far more trouble actually supporting it.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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