A silent protest in Harvard’s main library prompted multiple faculty suspensions.
Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Harvard University administrators temporarily barred multiple faculty members from the university’s main library after more than two dozen held a silent “study-in” to protest treatment of student demonstrators who were temporarily suspended from the library for a similar demonstration.
Last month an estimated 30 pro-Palestinian student supporters held a silent study-in at the Widener Library after distributing keffiyehs and posters with slogans such as “Israel Bombs Harvard Pays” outside the building, according to The Harvard Crimson. Inside the library, they read quietly, with signs bearing similar statements taped to their laptops. More than a dozen students were suspended from accessing the library for two weeks as a result of the demonstration.
On Thursday, faculty received the same treatment.
Faculty Suspensions
One of the protest participants, Erik Baker, a lecturer in the History of Science Department, wrote on social media that he and others had been suspended for the study-in last week.
“My faculty colleagues and I have been banned from Widener Library for two weeks to punish us for reading quietly while displaying quotations from the Library’s statement of values,” he wrote.
The referenced quotation reads, “Embrace diverse perspectives.”
Another professor, speaking anonymously, confirmed that roughly 25 faculty members had been suspended from the library for two weeks for their role in the protest. According to a copy of the suspension notice shared by faculty members, protest participants “assembled with the purpose of capturing people’s attention through the display of tent-card signs.” That move violated university policy, according to the letter signed by the Widener Library administration.
“As you are aware, demonstrations and protests are not permitted in libraries,” the letter read.
“Physical access to Widener Library will be suspended from today until November 7,” the letter said, noting that affected faculty members will still be able to request pickups at other library locations. Their “online access to library resources and services will not be affected,” it read.
Harvard refused to confirm the suspension when contacted by Inside Higher Ed on Thursday.
It landed on the same day that Martha Whitehead, the head of the Harvard library system, released a statement emphasizing the role of libraries as places of learning.
“Study-ins are a silent form of protest,” she wrote. “In recent experience, they have been publicized group efforts where participants sit quietly displaying signs relating to their cause. Some would argue that this is not disruptive—it’s not noisy and other seats remain available—and so it’s acceptable in a space that is otherwise off limits for protests. They see it as no different from the free expression of an individual using a laptop with political stickers or wearing a t-shirt with a political message.”
But others, she went on to note, “take the position that a study-in compels attention to a specific message—otherwise why would it be held in a community space—so it is inherently disruptive and antithetical to the intent of a library reading room.”
Whitehead cast the library protests as incompatible with the nature of the space.
“The library must be a sanctuary for its community,” she wrote. “This means it is a place where individuals know they will be welcomed to exercise their right to access the space, the collections, and the divergent ideas that help advance their own knowledge and understanding. If our library spaces become a space for protest and demonstration—quiet or otherwise, and no matter the message—they will be diverted from their vital role as places for learning and research.”
Her statement did not reference the student or faculty suspensions from the library.
Mixed Reactions
As news of the suspensions spread—driven initially by Baker’s social media post and later by reporting from the Crimson—observers expressed mixed reactions. Some signaled support, while others argued the suspensions were a natural result of breaking university rules.
“I can’t believe they’re actually doubling down on this. I don’t know a single librarian or library staff member who supports measures like this. And the justifications … are nonsensical. What is going on????” Amanda H. Steinberg, a librarian in Harvard’s Fine Arts Library, wrote on X.
Others took the opposite view.
“What you and your colleagues did is knowingly break a university rule to protest the punishment of a group of students who knowingly broke the same rule. And now you’ve been treated the same as them,” Steven McGuire, the Paul and Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, wrote in a social media response to Baker. “Perhaps the rule should be modified, but at least be honest about what you did.”
The Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard—a faculty group founded in 2022 to promote free expression on campus—voiced concern about the prohibition of the study-in and subsequent suspension of students. In an op-ed in the Crimson, CAFH co-president and Harvard professor Melanie Matchett Wood argued, “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.”
In an email to Inside Higher Ed, Wood said the council is considering its next steps. While she noted the group has no immediate follow-up statement, she expressed disappointment in the suspensions personally and as co-president of the council.
“The absurdity of this result underlines the problems with how Harvard is trying to regulate silent protests,” Wood wrote. “Students and faculty should have a right to read and work quietly in the library. They can and should be able to read side by side with others whose clothes, or political stickers, or reading lists, represent points of view that they disagree with.”