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Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 said that he believed it was “appropriate” to discipline student protesters who staged a silent “study-in” in Widener Library last month, but stopped short of saying he agreed with the decision to ban students from the library for two weeks.

Garber’s comments, which came during an interview with The Crimson on Tuesday, come after the University faced criticism from some faculty members and students for temporarily banning the protesters from entering Widener even though their access to library materials was not affected.

Garber, however, said that the suspension itself was determined by library administrators and indicated that he was not familiar with the specific nature of the protest.

“The decision is really in the hands of the library,” Garber said. “I don’t know all of the details about the action, but it seemed to me that applying some form of consequence for violating a policy that is fairly clear cut is appropriate.”

Still, he acknowledged that the University needed to carefully consider any disciplinary action that prevented students from accessing a library.

“I think that a decision to pose any restrictions on library access needs to be taken with a great deal of thought and care,” Garber said.

The students were banned from Widener following a Sept. 21 “study-in,” during which protesters wore keffiyehs and attached signs to their computers that stated: “Imagine it Happened Here” and “Israel Bombs, Harvard Pays.”

During the action, library staff took down participants’ ID numbers and distributed notices that informed students that they were participating in a protest that violated University policies.

“We have very clear rules that there are certain spaces where protests cannot occur,” Garber said. “These are time, place, and manner restrictions — and libraries are one of the locations where they cannot occur.”

In letters informing students of their suspensions, library administrators wrote that the students had “assembled with the stated purpose of making their presence known by occupying the Loker Reading Room and displaying flyers provided by the event organizers.”

In defending the administration’s decision, Garber fixated on the group’s intent to protest, as opposed to how they chose to make their statement.

“Clearly, a sticker or an article of clothing by itself would not necessarily be a form of protest,” Garber said.

“It’s important to consider factors such as whether it was an organized event, whether there was an intention for a large group of people to gather to deliver a common message,” he added.

The temporary library ban has come under fire from a wide range of faculty groups including Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine and the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, which accused Garber and his administration of violating free speech protections articulated in the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities.

Math professor Melanie Matchett Wood, who serves as a co-president of CAFH, wrote in an op-ed on behalf of CAFH leadership that “the students who sat quietly and studied did not interfere with normal campus activity, and Harvard thus has no compelling reason to prohibit their speech.”

“Indeed, our commitment to free expression requires us to allow it,” Wood added.

During the interview, Garber said that a protest does not necessarily need to be disruptive to violate time, place, and manner restrictions.

“However, I think the degree of disruption is a very pertinent fact to be considered in any kind of disciplinary proceeding,” he said.

CAFH’s leadership also questioned what definition of protest Harvard administrators were using to determine whether University policies had been violated.

“Not only do we not have answers to these questions, but it seems implausible that the University could determine what constitutes a “protest” in a content-neutral manner,” Wood wrote in the op-ed.

Garber declined to explain which specific actions would constitute a protest, and acknowledged there was some “gray area” around the rules.

“One can debate whether or not a specific set of actions constitutes a protest, and I think this is a situation that we may be facing in the future again,” Garber said. “It’s very healthy to have a discussion about this issue of what actually constitutes a protest.”

Ahead of the Widener protest, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine — a coalition of unrecognized student groups — publicized the “study-in” on Instagram, asking students to gather at the library’s steps and display flyers passed out by organizers once inside the reading room.

The decision to discipline study-in protesters reflects Garber’s stricter approach to regulating demonstrations after his administration released a statement in January clarifying the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities.

Pro-Palestine protesters held a similar Widener “study-in” in December 2023 that did not elicit a disciplinary response from the University. Garber said that the protest last year had prompted a discussion among administrators about clarifying policies.

“We realized that not everybody had the same understanding of what that statement meant, and there needed to be greater clarification of the statement, and that's why we issued this update that explained more clearly,” Garber said.

The rules were updated again over the summer, specifically banning overnight camping, unapproved signage, and chalking on University property.

During the interview, Garber added that precedent — a key point of contention in determining the appropriate response to the spring encampment — may not always apply with new or newly-clarified rules in place.

“Precedent doesn’t actually dictate what happens if we have policies today that didn’t exist then,” Garber said.

—Staff writer Emma H. Haidar can be reached at emma.haidar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @HaidarEmma.

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles.