Harvard Law School Suspends Students’ Library Access After ‘Study-In’

Harvard Law School suspended at least 18 students’ access to Langdell Library for two weeks following a silent “study-in” in support of clinical instructors last Friday.

At least 18 participants received suspension emails Friday morning, according to an organizer. The organizer said at least one student who was in the library but did not participate in the study-in also received a notice.

One student who received a suspension email was still able to scan into the library shortly after 11 a.m, the organizer added.

Assistant Dean for Library and Information Services Amanda T. Watson cited students’ involvement in an “organized demonstration” in the HLS Library on Nov. 6, according to a copy of the email obtained by The Crimson.

“Participants assembled in the Law Library Reading Room with the purpose of capturing attention through the coordinated display of flyers provided by demonstration organizers,” Watson wrote.

The email said the students’ physical access to the Law School library would be suspended until Nov. 27, though they would retain borrowing privileges, online access, and access to other Harvard libraries. Students could request reconsideration by Nov. 17. The suspension would not be included in their disciplinary records.

Roughly 40 HLS students staged the silent, nearly hourlong ‘study-in’ on the fourth floor of Langdell Library on Nov. 6. Students displayed signs on their computers calling for fair pay for the school’s clinical instructors and wore blue badges reading “Students stand with HLS clinicians.

More than 260 students signed an accompanying petition calling for the University to reach a contract agreement with the union after more than two years of bargaining.

HLS administrators were not observed scanning participants’ Harvard IDs during the event, as they had during similar study-ins in the past.

An HLS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Harvard Law Record, an independent student newspaper at HLS, reported Friday that a student journalist covering the event was also suspended. Kelsey H. Carido, a second-year law student and Record journalist who was taking photos of the study-in, wore a badge supporting the clinical instructors.

“The email says students were suspended for displaying flyers,” Carrido wrote in a statement. “I didn’t display one. I was there as a reporter, and I’d like to know what I was suspended for.”

“Like any student journalist, I have personal views. They are separate from my reporting. My understanding is that wearing a button or signing a petition is protected expression under Harvard’s own policies,” she added.

Law School professor Stephen E. Sachs ’02 suggested that students who participated in the ‘study-in should face disciplinary measures in a Monday email to HLS faculty.

Sachs pointed to a similar 2024 study-in protesting the war in Israel and Gaza and what participants described as “Harvard’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.” At least 60 students were temporarily barred from the library after that demonstration, during which HLS administrators scanned participants’ Harvard IDs.

The restrictions prompted Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine to stage another study-in protesting both the disciplinary measure as well as the original cause.

“It seems to me important that like cases be treated alike, with no room for justified claims of selective enforcement against particular persons or causes,” Sachs wrote in the email, calling the demonstration a ‘sit-in.’ “Indeed, if anything, the argument for academic discipline rather than a temporary loss of library privileges is stronger now that the underlying policies have been made so clear.”

Sachs wrote in a statement that “the Law School should treat all its students fairly and enforce its library policies evenly, without regard to the students’ cause.”

“Sometimes we can’t help distracting others in a library — though even then, we should try not to attract more attention than necessary, as when muffling a cough,” Sachs wrote. “But to deliberately choose a library for a protest is to deliberately seek to redirect others’ attention away from their books and toward the signs on our laptops.”

“If no one looked up, our group effort would have failed,” he added. “Harvard’s libraries are for reading and studying, not for providing a captive audience.”

HLS spokesperson Lacey J. Rose had previously declined to say whether the Law School was pursuing disciplinary action against the students, instead referring The Crimson to a Thursday morning email sent to HLS affiliates.

The email — signed by Watson, Dean for Student Services Catherine Peshkin, and Dean for Administration L. Tracee Whitley ’88 — stated that affiliates which violated “content-natural time, place, and manner restrictions, particularly as they relate to the Harvard Law School Library” may be subject to suspension from the library or other disciplinary action.

“Feedom of speech and academic freedom are foundational values of our academic community, as are the rights to assemble, protest, and dissent,” they wrote. “Nonetheless, exercising those rights must be consistent with the rights of others to speak, learn, teach, and work, and with the law school’s ability to fulfill its educational mission.”

Sachs, a former Crimson Editorial Chair, also pointed to a 2024 essay from Vice President for the Harvard Library and University Librarian Martha J. Whitehead, who argued that even silent demonstrations shift libraries’ purpose from individual learning to a public forum and wrote that “seeking attention is in itself disruptive.”

“If silently sitting in a library is an improper way to support clinicians, what is the correct way according to the university?” second-year law Matthew T. Tyler, a member of the HLS-Harvard Graduate Student Union organizing committee, wrote in a statement. “For weeks, the University has been telling the unions that if they quietly sit down, they could get a contract.“

—Staff writer Uy B. Pham can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ubp.88. Follow him on X @uybpham.