This article from Harvard Magazine documents the occurrence of “silent study-ins” in the University’s main library: Widener. While protests on the wide Widener steps have always been countenanced, these demonstrations are new because they take place inside—in the reading rooms.
They of course involve pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protestors, who can’t seem to refrain from disrupting anything, whether it be traffic, classes, putting up graffiti, or, in this case, studying in the library. These sit-ins have been conducted by both students and faculty (faculty are often more anti-Israel than students). Click to read.
Some excerpts:
Throughout this fall, groups of students and faculty members have again taken to libraries with taped signs and coordinated reading lists. These demonstrations—direct challenges to Harvard’s protest restrictions—have ignited campus discussions on what defines a protest, when free expression obstructs learning, and how to introduce new regulations meant to sustain both academic operations and speech.
On January 19, 2024, just after Alan M. Garber assumed the interim presidency, he and the deans released a statement clarifying University policy regarding “the guarantees and limitations” of campus protest and dissent. That January policy states that “demonstrations and protests are ordinarily not permitted in classrooms…libraries or other spaces designated for study, quiet reflection, and small group discussion.” But it did not define what constitutes a protest.
That ambiguity was put to the test on September 21, when approximately 30 pro-Palestine students sat in Loker wearing keffiyehs and displaying signs protesting Israeli strikes in Lebanon. A day before the event, a Harvard administrator warned students that such an action would violate Harvard policies, The Crimson reported. During the protest, library staff informed the students that they could not protest in the library and recorded their Harvard ID numbers. (Students are allowed to protest outside of the library—the Widener steps are a popular location. This semester, both students and faculty held pro-Palestine protests there and were not punished by the University.)
In response to the study-in, Widener Library banned participating students from the building for two weeks. “Demonstrations and protests are not permitted in libraries,” Widener Library administration wrote in an email to punished students that was obtained by The Crimson. The email specified that the recipient had “a laptop bearing one of the demonstration’s flyers.” During the students’ two-week Widener suspensions, they could pick up library materials from other locations, but not enter Widener itself.
The University response angered some faculty members. What made this study-in a protest? Why did a silent action merit punishment? Three weeks after the initial student action, approximately 30 faculty members followed suit. The participants read texts about dissent (ranging from Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau to materials published by Harvard itself) and displayed placards quoting the Harvard Library Statement of Values (“embrace diverse perspectives”) as well as the University-wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities (“reasoned dissent plays a particularly vital part in [our] existence”).
. . . . Following those initial confrontations, library actions become more numerous on campus. In the month following the October 16 faculty study-in, there have been two such events at the Law Library, one at the Graduate School of Design, another at the Divinity School (a “pray-in”), and two more in Widener (one faculty-led and another student-led). A November 8 Widener faculty study-in pushed the University’s punishment calculus to its logical extreme, with professors displaying blank papers.
Some pushback from a librarian:
The administrative response to the library protests has, if anything, prompted more faculty members to express concerns. Since the fall wave of demonstrations began, the library has twice articulated why the study-ins merit punishment. On October 24, University librarian Martha Whitehead published an essay titled “Libraries are places for inquiry and learning” in which she argued that the study-ins—which she firmly classified as protests—disrupt academic life:
While a reading room is intended for study, it is not intended to be used as a venue for a group action, quiet or otherwise, to capture people’s attention. In the study-ins in our spaces, we heard from students who saw them publicized and chose not to come to the library. During the events, large numbers of people filed in at once, and several moved around the room taking photos or filming. Seeking attention is in itself disruptive.
What we have here is a conflict between free speech and disruption of University regulations, which prohibit demonstrations in libraries. Granted, these are silent demonstrations, so I had to think it over. In the end, having studied at Widener Libary, which has a huge and beautiful reading room, I decided I agree with Ms. Whitehead. I thought, “What if I were trying to study in Widener and a bunch of people came in with posters affixed to their computers, sometimes walking about, and all of them expressing an opinion on ideology or politics. I concluded that such demonstrations, no matter what ideology they favored, are disruptive of study, which of course is one of the functions of the University. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on my work if I were surrounded by protestors.
By all means these demonstrators are free to gather and hold up signs on the Widener steps (shown below), but to have silent demonstrations like this in libraries, symposia, or classrooms, is disruptive to the mission of a university, and should be banned. Harvard has already banned them, but perhaps you disagree. Give your opinion in the comments, please:
A photo of the Widener showing its famous steps. This is from about 1920. They look pretty much the same today, but there are no cars or buggies in front.
Here’s a short video of the spaces inside Widener, including the reader rooms. Isn’t it lovely? They show the steps in an outside view at the end.
Every college must have spaces that are free of attempts at ideological message-sending. Libraries, for sure, are one of those spaces.
+1 Ken
+1
IMHO:
• studying – seeking mastery of any subject – is akin to a deep meditation, and not without GENUINE personal struggle or GENUINE personal distress – but not permanently so. Having a facility as beautiful as that shown is very important to show some sort of commitment to the principles of taking on such a personal endeavor – that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
• Radicals will dialectically assert that the above point is itself protest, so it is unfair to ban protest as they define it, or indeed that genuine protest is to be only defined by a radical ideology.
The claim that these are not protests is beyond disingenuous. The participants acknowledge that their purpose in being in the library — at that place, at that time, in concert with others of common purpose — is to attract attention to their cause. The only reason for their engaging in such concerted action (and yes, even if silent it is an “action”) is to quietly, but clearly, voice an opinion on a political issue. They can do that elsewhere. They are prohibited from doing it within the library.
And the fact that non-trivial numbers of faculty have participated in these protests — even after the university administration made clear that these actions were not permissible — shows how deep the rot is, and how difficult it will be for universities to regain their role and status in society. When a faculty member has been informed that action “X” violates university policy, but then engages in action “X” anyway, the consequences need to be much more than a meaningless slap on the wrists. These faculty did not simply violate a clear university policy, they were insubordinate in a manner that challenges the orderly functioning of the university. If Garber thinks that “this too will pass”, he will simply face more and more challenges to his authority, and he too will go the way of Gay as a failed president.
I can’t help but note the similarity to Saul Alinsky’s plan to occupy all the toilets and urinals in O’Hare airport for lengthy periods to force Mayor Daley to back off plans that would have backtracked on fair housing legislation agreed to by the city. Never happened, but the threat was enough. Is a university campus different than an airport? Public vs restricted space? To what extent does our reaction depend on the issue or its nature? Certainly, current protests include attacks on an identifiable group (Jewish in this case) lacking in the Alinsky case. If anything, it was the city that was acting against the interests of Black residents.
The issue is not what is a protest. The issue is what is distracting.
+1
Your target’s reaction is your real action
-Saul Alinsky
I plead guilty to having studied political science (PS), and, among the many topics dealt with in PS, collective action, social movements and political protest. Protest, by definition, tries to be disruptive.
So it’s a hard No from me, to the question whether collectively going into a library and displaying signs with political messages is acceptable.
Occupation of the toilets, as mentioned in comment #4, could be an obvious next step. That could be described as a “sit in”, would certainly draw attention to the protesters, and would represent a challenge to the university’s authority even more self-dramatizing than the “silent” library displays. Both tactics are familiar in child psychiatry.
A s*** in?
Haha
That made me LOL for real.
Harvard University and the other Ivy Leagues are seemingly on a continuous spiral downhill. These days whenever you hear news about these institutions, seldom is something positive.
Why do the “Ivy League” schools continue to wimp along and find ways to tolerate the people who destroy the very reasons (one supposes) that they wished to attend these increasingly crippled institutions? I doubt that they would be tolerated in a “trade school” to major in television repair or adjusting the timing of a vehicle. I am a Cornell graduate. I once watched a really lame protest against the war in Viet Nam. The person who was to burn his draft card was really nervous and when no one showed up to arrest hime he did not know what to do. That was it for the anti-war folks.
I’m of the opinion it is that the “adults” that run these institutions totally co-sign the actions of their students or are simply cowards who enable this nonsense and refuse to challenge or scrutinize them.
I tend to agree it’s disruptive and shouldn’t be allowed, but I’d be interested in learning what FIRE thinks of this issue. Can’t find anything.
I’m also curious about how many students actually stay in the library and study during these “silent” protests. Is it the sort of thing they’re learning to tune out?