Harvard Faculty Members Suspended From School Library Over Anti-Israel Protests

Harvard Faculty Members Suspended From School Library Over Anti-Israel Protests

Harvard needs to fire these people. They are setting a bad example for the students who look to them to know what is acceptable behavior.

The Harvard Crimson reports:

Faculty Members Suspended From Harvard’s Main Library After ‘Study-In’ Protest

Harvard Library suspended roughly 25 faculty members from entering Widener Library for two weeks after they conducted a silent “study-in” protest in the library’s main reading room last week — an extraordinary disciplinary action taken by the University against its own faculty.

The faculty study-in protested the library’s decision to similarly suspend student protesters who conducted a pro-Palestine study-in last month. The University’s decision to suspend students from the library had already come under fire from free speech groups, including the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard.

During the faculty study-in, professors silently read materials on free speech and dissent while placing signs related to free speech and University policy on the tables in front of them. As they did so, Securitas guards noted down their names and ID numbers.

The faculty protest forced Harvard administrators to choose between sanctioning their own colleagues and relaxing the disciplinary precedent it set by suspending student activists three weeks ago.

Though the University has previously disciplined faculty members for academic misconduct or violating policies on sexual harassment, the decision to suspend professors from a library for protesting appears to be unprecedented. The Crimson could not identify any past cases where Harvard barred a group of faculty members from entering a specific campus space as a result of their activism.

The suspension notification sent to faculty members, obtained by The Crimson, was largely the same as the email sent to student activists last month, though it doubled down on the move to suspend study-in participants by citing “the University’s response in prior situations.”

In particular, library administrators charged the faculty members with gathering in the library “with the purpose of capturing people’s attention through the display of tent-card signs, which administrators said violated library policies.

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