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University discipline shouldn’t hinge on which Harvard school awards you your diploma. Thankfully, Harvard is finally taking a step to fix that.

This week, the University announced a new process for handling disciplinary cases spanning multiple schools. Harvard’s president will be able to summon a faculty panel from the University Committee on Rights and Responsibilities to investigate and sanction students from any Harvard school involved in the same protest.

That’s a smart — and overdue — move.

Consistency in discipline is the bedrock of fairness. Students who chant side-by-side shouldn’t face wildly different punishments simply because they report to different deans.

And yet, In the past, that’s exactly what’s happened. After last spring’s pro-Palestine encampment, five College students were suspended and thirteen were barred from Commencement. Many graduate students in the same tents received mostly “slaps on the wrist” — if they received punishment at all.

Harvard has tried to fix the issue before. After the 1969 occupation of University Hall, the Corporation created a University-wide Committee on Rights and Responsibilities to unify disciplinary responses across schools.

But by the mid-1980s, the project had eroded. When anti-apartheid protesters staged a blockade of a South African diplomat in 1985, the CRR suspended 10 College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students. The Law School’s Administrative Board issued mere warnings.

And the story repeats. After protests erupt, Harvard panics and centralizes its discipline, only to forget the lesson until the next bout of unrest. Each revival displays the University’s need for an enduring, school-spanning process; each lapse returns our school to the same patchwork of enforcement.

The University’s new process would create a faculty body drawn from the UCRR with the power to oversee cross-school protest disciplinary cases. That solves the problem for single protests with students at multiple schools. But what identical protests that involve students at only one school?

Taking precedent as our guide, even with the new policy, a silent study-in at Widener Library might earn a ban; the same action at Langdell Hall could earn a shrug. Harvard should take steps to standardize discipline in such cases, too — undergraduates and law students shouldn’t be disciplined differently for committing the same offense.

As Harvard implements the new change and considers further reform to standardize disciplinary processes, it should keep a few principles in mind. First — as Garber was right to emphasize — it must center faculty agency. Faculty possess intimate knowledge of the University and are more insulated from outside pressures.

Second, Harvard must ensure the rules it applies are fair. Bad rules are bad rules — perfect enforcement of an imperfect ruleset serves to decrease equity in discipline.

While universities have a right to impose time, place, and manner restrictions on protest, Harvard’s ill-conceived policies have resulted in a bevy of poor decisions — including its banning of chalking, twice suspending the PSC, and withholding diplomas from student protesters.

Heavy-handed restrictions chill speech and betray the ideals of civil discourse that Harvard claims to uphold. When regulating protest, the University should err on the side of more speech, not less.

Third, the new faculty body should operate on increased transparency. While the UCRR is traditionally anonymous, disciplinary bodies like the College’s Ad Board are not — and for good reason. Accountability builds trust. It deters abuse. It ensures that those facing discipline are treated with integrity, not opacity.

Harvard’s move to centralize protest discipline is a welcome first step. If this system is to endure, it must be consistent, transparent, and strong enough to outlast the next crisis. Otherwise, we’ll be back where we began: wondering why our punishment depends on the logo on our lanyards.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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