Harvard and MIT urge protesters to leave or face suspension

Harvard and MIT increased pressure on students protesting the war in Gaza and threatened to suspend students who refused to end their campus occupations and take down their tents.

“The continuation of the camp poses a significant risk to the educational environment,” Harvard Interim President Alan M. Garber wrote in an email to students and alumni. “Those who engage in or perpetuate the continuation will be subject to involuntary leave of absence from their schools.”

At MIT, President Sally Kornbluth said in an email that student protesters had until 2:30 p.m. today to clear their camp on Kresge Lawn or face consequences. She wrote in an email to the MIT community that she had hoped to avoid a confrontation by engaging students in a good-faith discussion, but cited increasing security concerns.

“No matter how peaceful student behavior may be, it is not right to unilaterally take over a central part of our campus for one side of a hotly contested issue and exclude use by other members of our community,” she wrote. “This situation is inherently extremely unstable.”

Sam Ihns, an MIT student involved in the camp, told GBH News that police set up guard posts around the camp this morning. Ihns said police stopped access to the area early in the afternoon.

MIT officials said that students who remained in the MIT camp after the deadline would be immediately provisionally suspended until the start of their studies and referred to the disciplinary committee. Those who remained and have cases pending will not be allowed to stay in campus housing or use dining halls.

As of 5 p.m., about a dozen tents remained in the camp while police guarded the only gap in the cordon. Around 6 p.m., demonstrators tore down the fence and reclaimed the field

Quinn Perian, an MIT student, told GBH News that the university should focus its efforts on cutting ties with Israel rather than disciplining students. Scientists Against Genocide, a pro-Palestinian activist group, reports that MIT has received over $11 million in approved research funding from the Israeli Ministry of Defense since 2015, with nearly $4 million spent on these contracts.

“It’s a shame what MIT is doing right now,” Perian said. “You could cut those connections so easily. It’s really exceptionally direct what they do. They help build the weapons used in this genocide.”

A large number of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on the MIT campus Monday afternoon to express their frustration with the school’s response and their support for the students remaining in the camp.

More than a hundred high school students joined the crowd as part of an organized strike.

“As high school students who will hopefully attend these universities, we are seeing current students being attacked for exercising their First Amendment rights,” said Valerie Nguyen, a senior at Boston’s Lyon High School who helped organize the participated in strikes. “And we don’t want to enter the academic world where we are at risk for the same reasons.”

At Harvard, university officials said students on leave would not be allowed to take exams or continue to live in Harvard housing and would have to vacate campus until resumption.

In response to the university’s announcement, protesters organized a rally at 5 p.m. Speakers at the event said they had repeatedly requested meetings with Harvard leadership to discuss their demand that the university divest from Israel-affiliated companies.

“President Garber wants to portray himself as a reasonable man, and we all know that Harvard will do anything to protect his image. But today the reality is undeniable,” said Leah, who did not give her last name but identified herself as a member of the group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine. “In response to the non-violent mass protest by students, he decided to forcibly remove the protesting students rather than sit at the negotiating table.”

Hibah Osman, associate professor and Harvard Faculty and Staff Representative for Justice in Palestine, also spoke at the rally.

“These children have the courage to do this and to fight back against everything and all the barriers of our administration because they are our moral compass, because they stand for justice.”

Brian Rosenberg, a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former president of Macalester College, said earlier Monday that he expected the threat of suspension would cause most protesters to disperse.

“This is far more consequential for student demonstrators than the use of the police, because very often these demonstrators want to be arrested,” he said.

Arrested students often face a minor misdemeanor charge after an arrest, while suspension or expulsion from an Ivy League university can have more serious academic consequences.

Among them, he said, are “parents who aren’t really happy about having paid tens of thousands of dollars for a semester of college that just went out the window.”

Academic sanctions also allow the university to avoid “really problematic optics of police involvement” and the possibility of a situation spiraling out of control.

Read the Harvard email:

Read the MIT announcement: