Harvard denies degrees to 13 protesters, defying faculty vote

Harvard University’s governing board said it’s declining to award degrees to 13 students who violated the university’s policies by participating in a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus.

The move came after 115 faculty members showed up to a meeting on Monday and voted to allow the students to graduate, even after they’d been disciplined by an administrative board, according to the Harvard Crimson. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has about 888 voting members.

The ruling is likely to exacerbate divisions between the Harvard Corp., led by former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and some faculty and students. The students were found to have “violated the university’s policies by their conduct during their participation in the recent encampment in Harvard Yard,” the corporation said in a statement Wednesday. It added that the faculty vote did not revisit the disciplinary proceeding nor restore the students to “good standing.”

Harvard Corp. has been criticized since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, with the university struggling to combat accusations of antisemitism on campus and over its handling of former president Claudine Gay, the university’s first black president, who resigned after just months in the role.

In recent weeks it’s come under scrutiny as protesters set up an encampment on Harvard Yard against the war in Gaza, while university leadership, including interim President Alan Garber, has also faced backlash from faculty and students for disciplining activists who are demanding the university disclose its financial ties to Israel and divest.

Asmer Asrar Safi, an incoming Rhodes scholar to Oxford University from Pakistan, said on X that he’s one of the students unable to graduate.

More than 9,000 students are being given degrees in a ceremony on Thursday in Harvard Yard including more than 1,500 undergraduates from Harvard College. The events include a day of processions, celebration and speakers, including journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa.

Several students wore keffiyeh scarves and protesters gathered held where guests lined up enter the ceremony with one sign declaring “Jews Say Ceasefire Now.”

Across the street, were signs saying “Harvard Against Antisemitism,” with several people holding Israeli flags. The Harvard Crimson reported that a truck drove around the square displaying student names and faces and labeling them antisemites. 

Bloomberg