Free Speech

Harvard Doubles Down On 'Protest' Retaliation & Punishes Teachers For Studying In Library

It's a bad look for the school.

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senior woman studying old tech

Pictured: Unruly Behavior

In a word, an Op Ed in The Crimson asked the Harvard administration a seemingly rhetorical question: You punished students for studying in the library, “What’s next? Punishing us?” As it turns out, yes! Harvard displayed some truly Ivy League decision making and decided to push its own staff for studying in the main library. They were suspended from the library for two weeks, much like the students that were punished for having thoughts near each other weeks before.

The Crimson has coverage:

Board members of Harvard’s American Association of University Professors chapter — several of whom, including President Kirsten A. Weld and Vice President Walter Johnson, participated in the study-in — called the decision to suspend professors “disturbing” in a statement.

Weld and Johnson wrote that “it highlights more serious problems on Harvard’s campus: the proliferation of new rules without meaningful faculty oversight or even input, a problematic lack of clarity regarding the definition of ‘protest,’ and the administration’s inclination to punish in lieu of opening up dialogue.”

Government professor Ryan D. Enos, who also participated in the study-in, condemned the library’s decision to suspend faculty members, saying “it’s very clear to us that these rules are being constructed on the fly.”

Besides the ludicrousness of the decision, the most glaring issue is the precedent this sets for policing speech and behavior on campus as a whole. Will students evenly displaced around the campus cafeteria wear a shirt that says, “Bombing children is bad” risk being suspended from the mess hall? If a professor walking in the Harvard Yard wears a pin that says, “It is barbaric to assassinate a Chief Negotiator during peace talks,” will that lead to demerits of some kind? Is merely wearing either of those things sufficient to label either actor as a protestor? Is Harvard’s ability to weather the storm of intellectual exchange so weak that wearing a wrist band stating, “Children shouldn’t be starved and deprived of clean water,” in the library means security will be called if you come back to go over your lesson plans the next day? Because that’s what it looks like right now.

It is reflexive to talk about time place and manner restrictions placed on protest, but when the restrictions are being made up on a case by case basis and, this part bears repeating, no clear definition on what constitutes a campus protest, it doesn’t bode well for the state of campus speech. God bless whichever political science professors at Harvard are scheduled to teach a class on the importance of protest after this.

Faculty Members Suspended From Harvard’s Main Library After ‘Study-In’ Protest [The Crimson]

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Earlier: So Much For Free Speech: Harvard Law Students Punished For Reading Together At Campus Library

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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