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Harvard suspends faculty members from main library after ‘study-in’ protest
Angered that students were disciplined for staging a silent "study-in" last month, some Harvard professors organized their own demonstration. Now they are facing a similar punishment.
Harvard University has barred about two dozen faculty members from entering a campus library for two weeks, a punishment for their participation in a silent “study-in” protest last week.
The faculty members staged their demonstration to show their solidarity with pro-Palestine student protesters who organized a “study-in” of their own in September and were disciplined for it.
Harvard Library administrators sent a suspension notification to about 25 faculty members earlier this week, according to The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. The faculty members were accused of gathering in the Widener Library “with the purpose of capturing people’s attention.” This apparently violated library policies.
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The faculty will still be able to borrow materials, and they can still access other libraries in the Harvard system, according to the Crimson. They are prohibited from entering Widener, the prestigious school’s flagship library.
When reached for comment, a Harvard Library spokesperson said that it is policy not to comment on individual matters related to library access or privileges.
The student study-in, held on Sept. 21, was a protest against Israel’s increasing military action and Harvard’s ties to the country. Those students silently filled the library, displaying messages like “IMAGINE IT HAPPENED HERE” and “ISRAEL BOMBS HARVARD PAYS.” In response, administrators banned some of the student demonstrators from Widener for two weeks, according to the Crimson.
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During the faculty-led study-in, participants displayed signs with the words “EMBRACE DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES,” a quote from Harvard Library’s Statement of Values. They wore black scarves and read texts on free speech, including George Orwell’s “1984.”
Their demonstration was meant to draw attention to Harvard’s free speech policies. The faculty members said that these rules were being disproportionately applied to students with political views about the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Now, those faculty members face a similar punishment. The move to ban a group of faculty members from a campus space due to their activism appears to be unprecedented, according to the Crimson.
Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, the student protest group behind last semester’s tent encampment, said in an Instagram post Thursday that more than 100 students and faculty have been suspended from the library in total. In response, more than 50 students held another study-in at Harvard Law School’s Langdell Library “to demand that Harvard divest its multibillion dollar endowment from Israeli genocide and protect student dissent on campus.”
The Harvard Library spokesperson highlighted an essay published Thursday from Martha Whitehead, head of the Harvard Library system.
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In that piece, Whitehead addressed differing opinions on silent study-ins as a form of protest. Some argue that these are not disruptive, as they do not generate noise and allow others to peacefully use the library. Others disagree.
“We’re concerned that even when there is no noise, an assembly of people displaying signs changes a reading room from a place for individual learning and reflection to a forum for public statements,” Whitehead wrote. “Librarians have a responsibility to protect library spaces for their intended uses. While a reading room is intended for study, it is not intended to be used as a venue for a group action, quiet or otherwise, to capture people’s attention.”
Library administrators received feedback from students who chose not to come to the library due to the protests, which generated large numbers of people filing into the facility at once and prompted others to take photos and video while roaming around the library.
“Seeking attention is in itself disruptive,” Whitehead wrote.
Government professor Ryan Enos, who participated in the demonstration, accused library leaders of shifting their logic “on the fly.”
“I was there and Martha Whitehead was not and I can guarantee you that it was not disruptive to the other patrons of the library,” he told the Crimson.
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