Harvard Law School Students Protest in Library, Leave Before ID Checks

More than 50 Harvard Law School students quietly protested in Langdell Hall’s library Friday afternoon, the third study-in protest to occur at HLS this semester.

The protest, which lasted for roughly 40 minutes, ended without library administrators checking the IDs of participants. While activists were quick to celebrate the lack of ID checks as a victory over the administration, an HLS official said library staff did not have prior knowledge of the protest.

The HLS official said the study-in ended before administrators had time to ID participants. Harvard administrators across the University continued to issue two-week suspensions to any affiliates who participate in study-in protests and there is no indication that the policy has changed.

Students entered Langdell at 12:20 p.m., where they silently studied with fliers taped to their laptops condemning Israel’s war in Gaza. More than 20 students also wore white t-shirts that read: “We were banned from Harvard Library for dreaming of a free Palestine.”

At precisely 1 p.m., students left Langdell en masse to rally outside the library. Following a group photo, organizers led the group in chants of “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Maha C. Husseini, a Palestinian American third-year law student, spoke to the crowd about the ongoing war in Gaza, which she described as “not only meant to intimidate, to scare, to kill, but also to make Palestine unlivable and untenable for Palestinians with psychological warfare.”

“In a way, of course to a much lesser degree, this school is silencing us and trying to do psychological warfare,” Husseini said.

“I think the fact that we were not IDed brings us back to what we’ve known the whole time, that these rules are not enforceable, that they’re arbitrary, and that they are trying to get inside our heads,” she said.

As Harvard Law School students staged a study-in in Langdell Hall’s library, flyers warned that they could be ID’d for participating in the protest. By Frank S. Zhou

Corrinne Shanahan, who joined the study-in protesters after they left Langdell, said that HLS did not ID students “despite having the intent to send a common message,” pointing to the white t-shirts worn by many participants.

“We can push this school to divest, but Garber refused to investigate the endowment,” Shanahan said, referencing Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 decision to reject a proposal to review the University’s endowment for ties to human rights violations.

Shanahan told The Crimson that after protesting for 40 minutes in Langdell without ID checks, it “was clear that the administration gave up” in enforcing its library use policy.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that “protests and demonstrations are not permitted in Harvard’s libraries, as well as other areas of campus that are used for study and academic activities.”

“Participants in protests that occurred inside libraries this semester have lost, for two weeks, access to the particular library building in which they demonstrated,” Newton added. “They retained all other library access, including all collections, services, and physical access to all other libraries.”

Still, Jacqueline Rayfield — a participant in Friday’s study-in — wrote in a statement that the lack of ID checks demonstrated that the University’s policy against study-in protests is inherently flawed.

“It’s clear that issuing library bans for studying in support of Palestine isn’t just absurd, it’s also impossible for Harvard to consistently enforce,” Rayfield wrote.

Correction: November 16, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Corrinne Shanahan as an organizer of the Harvard Law School study-in protest. In fact, Shanahan joined the protesters after they left HLS’ library.

—Staff writer S. Mac Healey can be reached at mac.healey@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @MacHealey.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.