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“It does not speak to the outcome of disciplinary processes, rather it indicates he would encourage disciplinary bodies to move their processes forward expeditiously, in line with their existing precedents and practices,” Newton said.
Harvard’s commencement is scheduled for Thursday. The encampment at Harvard Yard was the last in the Boston area to disband. On Saturday afternoon, the student coalition announced on Instagram that a petition was circulating for Harvard undergrads to sign to call for school leaders to let the disciplined students graduate on Thursday.
“We entered into our agreement with the Harvard administration with the understanding that Harvard would follow precedent in these disciplinary board procedures,” said the student coalition’s news release. The release attributed the comment to a coalition representative but didn’t identify the person by name.
“Interim President Garber’s email to our liaisons clearly states that he will allow students to graduate,” the news release said. “The decisions from [Friday] renege on that agreement.”
The group said the discipline shows “Harvard’s extraordinary commitment to the Palestine exception in matters of free speech, protest, and, now, discipline.”
Steve Levitsky, a Harvard government professor, said he knows some of the students who were disciplined. Among them are seniors who were placed on probation, a designation that blocks them from graduating for now, he said.
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Levitsky said the punishments are “highly disproportionate” compared with Harvard’s precedents for handling student demonstrations and that it appears the disciplinary board for undergraduate students issued harsher consequences than peer boards at the university’s other schools.
“We should not be meting out this sort of punishment to students who have been students in good standing at Harvard throughout their time here and have completed all the requirements for graduation,” Levitsky said. “This was a peaceful protest.”
The disciplinary actions were first reported by The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper.
According to the Crimson, Harvard senior Suhaas M. Bhat, who was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship last fall, is among students who were disciplined for participating in the encampment and now cannot graduate on time.
Bhat publicly announced his punishment on Friday at Sanders Theatre, where seniors had gathered for a talent show, the Crimson reported. The Globe couldn’t reach Bhat on Saturday for comment.
Jonathan Palumbo, a Harvard College spokesperson, said the school doesn’t comment on individual student cases. During the encampment, he said the school referred some undergraduate participants to disciplinary proceedings before the college’s Administrative Board.
Some undergrads referred to the Administrative Board also faced separate action by Dean of Students Thomas Dunne and were placed on involuntary leaves of absence from the college “due to continued violation of policies,” Palumbo said.
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In a message to the Harvard community after the agreement to end the encampment was reached, Garber said he would seek the prompt initiation of “reinstatement proceedings for all individuals who have been placed on involuntary leaves of absence.”
In the last several weeks, Garber has faced enormous pressure from students, professors, alumni, parents, and conservative politicians with strong and conflicting views on what should be done about the protesters and their demands that the university divest from Israel. Garber has said Harvard has no plans to divest.
In its news release, the student coalition said many students were “counseled to waive their procedural rights on the advice that the college would honor Garber’s agreement and decline to discipline them harshly.”
“Consequently, some students did not write personal statements, attend additional meetings, or confer with relevant advisors,” the release said.
Lea Kayali, a Harvard Law School student and organizer with Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, said she recently learned she wouldn’t be punished as a result of disciplinary proceedings she faced for encampment-related activities and a speech she made on campus in March.
She said the punishment facing undergrads is a “vindictive attack on our most vulnerable and youngest student organizers.”
“We’re talking about students who are on the precipice of very promising careers and futures and now they’ve had to put all that on hold because adults at the height of their careers have decided to lash out at them and punish them very harshly,” said Kayali, who is Palestinian.
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Alison Frank Johnson, a Harvard history professor, said the disciplinary actions are “catastrophic” and a “betrayal.”
“It departs from decades spent establishing the [Administrative Board] as an educational rather than a vindictively punitive body,” she said. Frank Johnson and Levitskyco-wrote an op-ed published in the Crimson prior to the encampment’s end that criticized school leaders for threatening to discipline students participating in the demonstration.
Walter Johnson, also a Harvard professor, said the discipline by the Administrative Board had left him “dumbfounded.” Johnson is a former faculty adviser to the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group that was suspended last month by Harvard leaders.
“Besides being counterproductive, it seems to be to be an ethically dubious institutional bait-and-switch, and based upon a process that has been rushed, imprecise, and procedurally improvisational,” Johnson said.
Harvard and scores of universities across the country have been caught up in the debate over Israel’s conduct during its war with Hamas. The latest conflict erupted Oct. 7 when Hamas invaded Israel, killed about 1,200 people, and took 250 hostage. Fighting between Israel and Hamas has led to the deaths of about 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health authorities there.
At Harvard, the Palestine Solidarity Committee set off a series of cascading crises for the university when it posted a controversial statement on Oct. 7 that many around the world read as justifying the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
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Since then, the war has polarized many college communities. Pro-Palestinian supporters accused their schools of complicity by maintaining financial and other ties with Israel, while many Jewish students reported incidents of antisemitism and harassment.
In the Boston area last month, protesters also erected encampments at Emerson College, MIT, and Northeastern and Tufts universities. The encampments at Emerson, MIT, and Northeastern ended after police intervened.
Tufts protesters dismantled their encampment on May 3 after negotiations with university officials stalled.
Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her @lauracrimaldi. Hilary Burns can be reached at hilary.burns@globe.com. Follow her @Hilarysburns.
