Harvard prepares for graduation protests

Harvard is bracing for protests when it begins Thursday, following one of the most turbulent years in the university’s history.

Disruptions became more likely after the Harvard Corporation, the board of trustees, banned 13 students from graduating for now because of their role in pro-Palestinian protests on campus. The students, and many faculty supporters, believed they had reached an agreement with the administration ending their encampment, which virtually guaranteed the lifting of disciplinary proceedings. The university denied promising the outcome of disciplinary proceedings.

The controversy caps a year in which Harvard became central in a national debate over how universities handled student protests against the war between Israel and Hamas.

The unrest began on October 7, when more than 30 student organizations signed an open letter holding Israel responsible for the violence of Hamas attacks in Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and some 250 kidnapped.

Backlash against the letter and Harvard’s slow response to denouncing the attacks as terrorism led to conflict on campus. Pro-Palestinian students were doxxed, their names and faces circulated in trucks around campus; Jewish students attacked with anti-Semitic slurs on social media; and wealthy donors withdrew their money.

In January, Harvard’s first black president, Claudine Gay, was forced to resign, after numerous accusations of plagiarism in her academic works and her disastrous testimony before a congressional committee, during which she failed to denounce calls to the genocide of the Jews as violating the Harvard Code. Driving.

Even the anti-Semitism task force encountered controversy over the choice of its co-chair, Derek J. Penslar, a professor of Jewish history at Harvard, who had said that the degree of anti-Semitism on campus was exaggerated.

The latest controversy over student discipline began Friday, after Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, a protest group, said some seniors would not be allowed to graduate. The announcement caused an uproar, as the students’ supporters said they were being punished for peacefully protesting. Although Harvard did not provide details about the errors made by the students, official statements indicated that the protesters cut the lock on the gate and harassed and intimidated staff members.

Some faculty supporters then engaged in a bureaucratic duel over the fate of the students.

Each year, on the Monday before the start of the school year, the College Registrar forwards to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences a list of all students who have met the requirements to graduate and are in good standing. The faculty meeting is usually pro forma. Faculty members are asked if they are in favor of sending the list to the company for degree conferment and, traditionally, they do.

This year, however, a group of faculty supporters of the student protesters came to the meeting armed with an amendment to reinstate the 13 students, including two Rhodes Scholars, on the registrar’s list. About 115 teachers were present at Monday’s meeting, out of nearly 900 eligible teachers. Some 500 faculty and staff signed a letter of support for students.

The amendment, however, was not binding, Harvard officials said, because it did not overturn disciplinary decisions or bring students into compliance.

So, on Wednesday, the company claimed that the 13 students did not have access to their diploma.

Depending on the rules, students can appeal and may be able to return to good standing. The company said that if it did, the university would award their degrees quickly, instead of waiting until the next official graduation period, and that students like Rhodes Scholars would not lose their scholarships.

“We understand that failure to complete a degree has consequences for students and their families,” the company said. “We fully support the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ stated intention to provide expedited review, at this time, of eligible requests for reconsideration or appeal. »

The opening speaker is Maria Ressa, a journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who, according to Harvard Interim President Alan Garber, “embodies Veritas.”

For its part, on Wednesday evening, the day before graduation, Harvard, outside occupied Palestine, published its own message: “Back to school”.