Cambridge City Council Passes Resolution Supporting Pro-Palestine Protesters at Harvard, MIT

The Cambridge City Council passed a resolution urging Harvard, MIT, and the Cambridge Police Department to respect the right of pro-Palestine students to protest during a Monday meeting.

At Harvard, where a pro-Palestine encampment is entering its third week, protests have remained peaceful and CPD has not gotten involved — although CPD officers were present at a march to the home of interim University President Alan M. Garber ’76 on Monday evening.

Things escalated more at MIT, where protesters — disregarding a mandate to take down the encampment by Monday afternoon or risk suspension — tore down a fence encircling an encampment and sporadically clashed with MIT police.

The resolution, which passed with the support of seven of the Council’s nine members, urges “the City Manager and the administrators of MIT and Harvard to respect the right of students to advocate for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and to protest the believed complicity of their academic institutions and government with the atrocities being endured by the people of Gaza.”

The resolution also asks the universities’ leaders to abide by guidelines expressed in an April open letter from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Before the encampment began, Garber said that while a police response remains an option, it would require a “high bar.” HUPD Chief Victor A. Clay also affirmed the student’s rights to peaceful protest in an interview with the Crimson.

But on Monday, Garber threatened the protesters with “involuntary leave” if they continue the encampment on campus — raising the possibility of police involvement.

Harvard and MIT spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

The resolution is the second major vote this year relating to the Israel-Hamas war. In late January, the Council unanimously adopted a resolution urging a ceasefire in Gaza.

Councilor Ayesha M. Wilson, one of the resolution’s sponsors, stressed the importance of supporting the right to peaceful protest.

“We must ensure that those exercising their rights to free speech are met with dignity and respect, not criminalization,” Wilson said, quoting a press release from Rep. Ayanna S. Pressley (D-Mass.), who visited the Harvard Yard encampment last month.

In an April 26 interview, Mayor E. Denise Simmons said that Cambridge should “try to be better” than Boston, where police have arrested students involved in encampments at Northeastern University and Emerson College.

“I stand by the law enforcement department because they have really worked overtime, in my opinion, toward de-escalation,” Simmons said.

During the meeting, Councilor Patty M. Nolan ’80 successfully lobbied the Council to amend the resolution to describe the protests as “largely peaceful” rather than simply, “peaceful.”

“At Harvard, the signs and the chants have also called for the total erasure of Israel,” Nolan said. “It is largely peaceful, but it has not been wholly peaceful.”

Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern said that the focus of this resolution is to prevent protests from escalating, like they have at universities across the country.

“This isn’t even really about whether we send the police in,” McGovern said. “What this order is talking about is, ‘if that’s going to happen, let’s do it in a way that doesn’t escalate things.’”

Corrections: May 8, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly quoted from the original, unamended resolution proposed by the Council. This article has been updated to reflect the text of the final, amended version.

A previous version of this article incorrectly characterized remarks by Councilor Ayesha M. Wilson at a Monday City Council meeting. In fact, Wilson was quoting a press release from Rep. Ayanna S. Pressley (D-Mass.).

—Staff writer Ayumi Nagatomi can be reached at ayumi.nagatomi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @ayumi_nagatomi.