Harvard Faculty Members Suspended From School Library Over Anti-Israel Protests
“the decision to suspend professors from a library for protesting appears to be unprecedented”
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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Comments
harvard gets no credit for doing the right thing
b/c we dont even know if they are really doing the right thing,,ever
Ooh, they were suspended from the library!
What’s next — suspending them from the camps Starbucks?
I bet this “goes on their permanent record,” to boot!
This is a strange story. I can’t find evidence that the faculty had any pro terrorist propaganda around just signs for free speech. I know what they were doing as did everyone else with this stunt but what did they do actually wrong?
Prevented others from using that library I gather.
The story doesn’t say that anyone was denied use of the library. It’s just very strange.
No, they didn’t. No one was prevented from using the library. The claim is merely that some students who saw the “study-in” publicized chose not to come to the library. That’s hardly a crime.
For seeking attention in the library and thereby interfering with others’ use of the library. Understandably, that violates the library’s rules.
What are those rules?
How does attention-seeking interfere with others’ use?
At least according to the linked article nobody had ever heard of such a rule before the library administration made it up just now.