Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine Statement about the First Library Ban

October 9, 2024

On Saturday, September 21, a group of Harvard students were quietly studying in Widener Library. On October 2, many of those students received notices they were banned from entering Widener Library  for two weeks for wearing keffiyehs and displaying a piece of paper on their laptops that said: “IMAGINE IF IT HAPPENED HERE.”

Library administrators and HUPD security officers patrolled the room, targeting students wearing keffiyehs, asking for IDs, interrogating students, and taking photographs. Targeting and punishing students for wearing keffiyehs while studying in the library is not only discriminatory, but disruptive to our learning environments, and an attack on expressive and academic freedom.

The sanctions email from Harvard Library administrators stated that “demonstrations and protests are not permitted in libraries,” and accused students of “occupying” Loker Reading Room while displaying a flier taped on the backs of their laptops. Yet the biggest disruption was campus police interrupting students from their studies by asking questions about their presence in the library, demanding IDs, and photographing students.

By targeting students wearing keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian garment, the Harvard Corporation is discriminating against Palestinian identity, and speech and dress in support of Palestinian rights. If laptops displaying political statements are unacceptable, will laptop stickers be banned next? Is freedom of expression no longer allowed in Harvard libraries? Can a group of students peacefully studying together in the library really be against Harvard policy?

Harvard’s freshly updated University-Wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities states that: “... interference with members of the University in performance of their normal duties and activities must be regarded as unacceptable obstruction of the essential processes of the University.”Is there anything more “normal” or “essential” than students quietly studying in libraries? 

This uneven application of the University-Wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities clearly demonstrates that Harvard’s new policies against political expression are not intended to keep students safe or minimize academic disruption. Rather, they have been designed to be weaponized against students they have already decided to target through blatant anti-Palestinian discrimination. Harvard librarians and staff, inside and outside FSJP, have expressed feelings of horror and betrayal over the Administration’s decision to ban students from Widener Library. This sanction is the antithesis of Harvard Library’s mission and goes against all values of librarianship.

We call on Harvard to immediately reinstate the impacted students’ access to Widener Library, roll back its repressive campus use policies, and end its material and political support for Israeli apartheid and colonial expansion that has killed thousands of people in Palestine and Lebanon and destroyed all of Gaza’s universities.