{shortcode-e7f1c7386a5b99e7adc748073f253ef9224cc79b}
Roughly 50 Harvard affiliates gathered outside Harvard Medical School’s Gordon Hall on Friday to protest the University’s July decision to remove more than 900 students on research-based stipends from the graduate student union.
The move to exclude stipended students from Harvard Graduate Student Union-United Auto Workers drew pointed condemnation from the Cambridge and Somerville city councils, but Friday’s rally was the first on-campus demonstration to center on the decision. HGSU-UAW has been negotiating its third contract with the University since February, and its previous agreement expired at the end of June.
The union filed a grievance with the University over the removals in July and requested to escalate the case to arbitration last month.
Speakers at Friday’s rally called on the University to reverse its decision to remove the students and argued that they performed the same work as those who were still covered by the contract. Harvard has consistently held that the stipended researchers are not employees because they do not perform specific tasks for the University in exchange for compensation.
Laila B. Norford, one of the students who Harvard removed from the union rolls, said in a speech at the rally that the students’ removal was a strategic decision on the University’s part as it faced extreme financial uncertainty.
“Harvard says they care about their scientists. They say they’re fighting for us, fighting to get our funding back. They say they’re doing what they can to support us. But actions speak louder than words,” she said.
A judge ruled in September that the Trump administration’s suspension of nearly $3 billion in funding to Harvard was unconstitutional. Though most of the funds have been restored, the White House has sworn to appeal the decision, and Harvard schools, including HMS, have continued tightening budgets. Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 said on Thursday that despite the ruling, she does not expect federal funding to return to previous levels.
“I feared that Harvard was going to use this carveout to fire scientist student workers at a moment’s notice and strip us of vital rights and benefits at a time when we were facing dire uncertainty,” Norford said during the rally.
Multiple campus unions have called on Harvard to draw on unrestricted endowment funds to forestall layoffs. During the protest, demonstrators chanted “Harvard, Harvard, you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side.”
Friday’s rally came after union members hung banners and placed carved pumpkins around Harvard’s Longwood campus and outside the Biological Laboratories building on Thursday to protest the stipended students’ removal. At least two of the signs had been taken down by Friday afternoon.
A University spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the signs or the rally. Union organizers did not respond to a request to comment on whether the banners had been pre-approved before being hung around campus.
At an October rally, union organizers were approached by Faculty of Arts and Sciences officials and informed the demonstration was in violation of Harvard’s campus use rules because speakers had used unauthorized megaphones to amplify their sound. The policies — adopted after the spring 2024 pro-Palestine encampment — prevent affiliates from putting up signage or amplifying sounds without administrative approval.
Union organizers have repeatedly argued their demonstrations are exempted from the rules, citing protections under federal labor law.
The Crimson could not confirm whether any protesters had been disciplined as of Friday, and the University did not comment on whether it would be taking action against students in the future.
Speakers did not use a megaphone at Friday’s protest, but union organizer Rachel Petherbridge said that the decision was not made out of concern for campus policies.
“We are a labor union. We are doing labor actions, and following arbitrary rules by the University when planning labor actions is not something that we actively are thinking about all the time,” she said.
—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.
—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.
