Hundreds of Harvard faculty publish letter supporting anti-Israel protesters

Hundreds of Harvard University faculty published an open letter to the university administration condemning the school’s disciplining of disruptive anti-Israel protestors. 

Harvard leadership suspended some of the anti-Israel demonstrators in Cambridge, Massachusetts and temporarily blocked others from graduating this year. 

The letter, which was published by The Harvard Crimson, is titled: “Open Letter from Concerned Faculty and Staff Regarding Sanctioning of Student Protestors,” and is dated May 20. It is addressed to Harvard Interim President Alan Garber, Dean Rakesh Khurana, and Dean Hopi Hoekstra.

The letter begins by describing as “arbitrary” the disciplining of anti-Israel protesters. 

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“We, the undersigned Harvard faculty and staff, are alarmed that Harvard undergraduate students who engaged in peaceful protest are being sanctioned in an unprecedented, disproportionate, and arbitrary manner compared to students engaging in similar acts of civil disobedience in Harvard’s history,” the Harvard faculty contended.

The faculty continued to assert that the measures undermined the “trust” between the Ivy League institution and its students.

“These sanctions undermine trust. Students and faculty acted based on the widespread understanding that the university would facilitate prompt graduation, as had been stated in direct communications from the President,” the faculty members wrote. 

“The primary outcome of these highly irregular Administrative Board proceedings will be to unduly harm these students’ future employment and current livelihood and to create further division on campus at a time when we should come together to honor our graduates,” they continued. 

They concluded: “We ask that these students, who engaged in peaceful protest, be allowed to graduate with the degrees they have earned.”

Crazy: Pro-Palestine protesters storm Harvard University and setup an encampment in Harvard Yard.

The move comes just days after Harvard restricted access to the Yard to only Harvard ID holders.

Before the Yard invasion, the school warned that setting up tents or tables would… pic.twitter.com/G82T4ao7g3

— 🎗️Micky Herzl 🇮🇱🇨🇱🇺🇲 🎗️מיקי הרצל (@mickywhiteblue) April 25, 2024

Not everyone at Harvard supports the protesters, however. Hundreds of Harvard alumni and others published an open letter of their own on May 21, urging the Ivy League institution to impose “significant consequences for the leaders of the encampment, a strong condemnation of antisemitism, and an end to discrimination against the pro-Israel community.”

For their part, opinion writers of The Harvard Crimson wrote on May 21 that the anti-Israel protestors barred from graduation are the “best of Harvard.”

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“You are the best of Harvard: talented, hard-working, and principled young people with a deep commitment to public service,” they wrote. “You are precisely the kind of student the College aspires to foster. Yet, by failing to live up to its values, Harvard failed you.”

Though members of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted on May 20 to allow 13 of the protesters to graduate, the Harvard Corporation stopped this motion, meaning the 13 anti-Israel demonstrators were temporarily blocked from graduating, at least in this year’s commencement ceremony. 

Campus Reform has contacted Harvard University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.