Response to Harvard President Garber’s Orders That Protesting Students Be Placed on “Involuntary Leave”
May 7, 2024
Alan M. Garber
Interim President
Harvard University
Dear President Garber,
I wish to respond to the letter that you sent out to all students, faculty, and staff concerning the encampment organized by students in Harvard Yard in protest against the genocide campaign being carried out in Gaza.
As your demands of the students far exceed the authority invested in you as the President of Harvard, and because you focused exclusively on the minor infractions of regulations by the protesters while ignoring the far more serious illegal actions being undertaken by the staff and faculty of Harvard University, the Harvard Corporation and its members, and the Board of Overseers and its members, I request humbly that we begin an open conversation about all of the unethical, illegal, and unconstitutional actions taking place at Harvard University and the Harvard Corporation.
I demand that you cease this dishonest effort to single out the sincere students who are trying to carry out their ethical responsibility as citizens by protesting against terrible acts of violence taking place in Gaza. Although the students, like many of us, may not fully understand the complexity of the issues involved, their commitment to the combination academic inquiry with moral action is to be praised and it has deep roots in the scholarly traditions from which Harvard derives its legitimacy.
Let us be honest with ourselves. Harvard University has taken enormous amounts of money, often in classified programs hidden from the public, and also in unclassified programs, from the military and intelligence of the United States, and from military and intelligence contractors, that involve activities that are not about national defense at all, but are clearly unethical and illegal. And yet, you are not demanding that those involved in these programs, or in the classified “anti-disinformation” operations run on campus by contractors using Homeland Security budgets, be stopped, or that those involved be dismissed from
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