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Student protesters received another ban from Harvard Law School’s Langdell Library for participating in a study-in last week, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine organizers said during a Thursday rally in the Science Center Plaza.
The ban marks the third such consequence for pro-Palestine study-ins since the start of the academic year. HOOP has previously held several study-ins at Widener and Harvard Law School’s Langdell Library that have resulted in students being temporarily banned from the spaces. Harvard faculty also received a two-week bar from Widener after holding a similar study-in to protest the disciplinary action against students.
The Thursday rally — which drew more than 80 people to the Science Center Plaza — was a part of a “week of action,” which also included a nearly four-hour study-in at Widener Library on Tuesday. During the event, protesters called for Harvard to divest from Israel and condemned Israel’s continued attacks in Northern Gaza.
The rally opened with chants calling for a “free Palestine” and demanding the University “disclose” and “divest” from investments in Israel.
In early September, HOOP representatives met with University President Alan M. Garber ’76 and representatives of the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — and Harvard Management Company to discuss the University’s endowment. At the meeting, student activists asked Garber to consider divesting from ties to any human rights violations, rather than only divesting from Israel.
In an Oct. 3 email to members of HOOP, Garber wrote that the University “will not use its endowment funds to endorse a contested view on a complex issue that deeply divides our community,” rejecting HOOP’s proposal to audit the endowment.
During the Thursday rally, HOOP organizer Tamar Sella ’25 said “increased attention to the defense of human rights is more vital than ever” after Israel moved to ban a United Nations aid agency from providing humanitarian aid in Gaza earlier this week.
“We are in a time of global anti-imperialist struggle and Palestine is at the center of it, which is why we asked President Alan Garber and the Harvard Management Company to adopt a policy that stops the endowment from funding human rights violations,” Sella said. “Still, Garber doubled down, confirming Harvard’s consistent position that it has no intention of divesting from Israel.”
At Thursday’s rally, speakers also called on attendees to continue the spring’s momentum. Last semester, HOOP organized a 20-day encampment in Harvard Yard and staged a walkout at Commencement.
“This email is our red line,” Sella added. “Garber will soon see, like we showed him before with our encampment last spring and the mass walkout at Commencement, that ignoring our mass movement and global consensus will not be the easiest path forward.”
In response to a request for comment, University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain referred to Garber’s Oct. 3 email to HOOP organizers, in which he wrote that the group’s new proposal for divestment “does not differ substantially from prior demands.”
“We make the most of Harvard’s distinctive capabilities to help resolve the world’s most vexing challenges by pursuing opportunities for intellectual engagement, not by curtailing HMC’s investment options,” Garber wrote in the message.
Near the end of the rally, organizers handed out copies of the Harvard Crimeson, a pro-Palestine publication modeled after The Crimson.
Despite Harvard’s move to ban student protesters from Widener and Langdell libraries, Alexandra D. Potter, a Harvard Divinity School student, said at the rally that student activism on campus has only continued to gain momentum and grow in numbers since the start of the academic year.
“They think they can continue their tirade of disciplinary actions and that it will silence the movement, that we will get scared and back off,” Potter said. “But that’s not true, is it?”
“I can say with confidence that new people are joining this campus and this movement all the time,” she added. “This movement and the push for divestment will never go away until we win.”
—Staff writer Madeleine A. Hung can be reached at madeleine.hung@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @azusalippit or on Threads @azusalippit.
