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Harvard affiliates protested the Harvard Undergraduate Association’s indefinite postponement of a student-wide referendum vote on whether the University should divest from “Israel’s occupation of Palestine” during a rally Friday afternoon.
More than 60 Harvard affiliates gathered in the light rain to denounce the decision to invoke an obscure HUA procedural motion to halt the vote. The delay came after a petition to hold the divestment referendum had already received the required 195 signatures to trigger a vote.
The rally, which was organized by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, migrated from the Science Center Plaza to outside the Smith Campus Center, where the HUA holds its weekly meetings.
Standing outside the Smith Center, protesters chanted: “Hey hey, ho ho, the HUA should let us vote.”
While the HUA’s constitution and bylaws stipulate that a referendum must be held within three weeks after a petition garners the required number of signatures, two HUA executive officers halted all upcoming referendum votes by motioning to form a “problem-solving team” following a dispute in the HUA’s constitutional guidelines.
The Election Commission informed the PSC in an email Thursday evening that the formation of a problem-solving team has left the referendum vote indefinitely in limbo.
During the rally, PSC organizers brought out a makeshift ballot box labeled “Let us vote” and asked attendees to write their names on slips of paper before adding them to the box.
Shraddha Joshi ’24, an organizer of the rally and one of the referendum’s official petitioners, demanded the HUA initiate the referendum process in the three week timeline and be more transparent about the delay.
Protesters also called on the HUA to better represent the undergraduate student body.
“We call on the HUA to serve as a genuine representative of Harvard students by rejecting the suppression of pro-Palestine speech as perpetuated by Harvard’s administration,” Joshi said.
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Organizers of the rally attributed the referendum delay to an intentional suppression of pro-Palestine activism.
Violet T.M. Barron ’26, an organizer with the PSC, said in an interview Friday morning that the delay is “truly just because it’s about Palestine.”
“I think that when they see that word, people automatically shut down, and they want to quash any sort of discussion of it,” said Barron, a Crimson Editorial editor.
The referendum freeze comes after Thursday’s successful effort to recall former HUA Co-President John S. Cooke ’25 from office following his expulsion from the Fox Club over misconduct allegations.
The petition to recall Cooke was announced by the Harvard Feminist Coalition. An HFC organizer and an organizer with the Harvard Undergraduate Workers Union also both spoke at the protest.
HFC organizer Jessica Wang ’26 pointed to the difference between how the HUA and Dean of Students Office handled the recall election against Cooke compared to how they responded to the Israel divestment petition submitted by the PSC.
“The Harvard Feminist Coalition calls bullshit,” Wang said. “We call bullshit on the HUA and the DSO’s clear double standard of denying students in support of Palestinian liberation their constitutional right to bring forward a referendum.”
“We demand the HUA and DSO allow for a vote on the referendum with the same urgency we were afforded,” Wang added.
“Anything less is discriminatory and an unjust attack on our rights as students,” she added.
HUWU organizer Brit G. Shrader ’23-24 called the postponement “chilling.”
“The HUA’s decision to postpone this referendum is a chilling attack on the movement for Palestine, the movement to end genocide and occupation,” Shrader said. “But we know that this decision was not made in good faith — it was made out of fear, it was made by two individuals within the HUA.”
Organizers also encouraged attendees to sign the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers’ Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Caucus’s open letter to Harvard, which calls for a “public disclosure” of the Management Company’s investments and subsequent divestment from “companies profiting from Israel’s destruction of Gaza and occupation of Palestine.”
Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that University leadership “has made clear that it opposes calls for a policy of boycotting Israel and its academic institutions.”
Joshi said that she ultimately expects the referendum to come to a vote following increased organizing efforts, including an email campaign.
“There comes a point where you can try to suppress all you want, but the students do believe something,” Joshi said. “There are these convictions that exist that you can’t erase.”
—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @azusalippit or on Threads @azusalippit.
—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.
