Once Again, Harvard Threatened Protesters. Once Again, They Were Wrong.

Harvard now polices affiliates for not registering their protests, using megaphones at rallies, writing messages about puppies in chalk — and now, just when we thought the administration couldn’t stoop lower, they’ve threatened discipline against students for participating in a silent demonstration.

On Saturday afternoon, around 30 pro-Palestine student protesters staged a silent “emergency study-in” at Widener Library in protest of a wave of Israeli attacks against Hezbollah last week.

In response to the protest — which consisted of students clad in keffiyehs silently studying with signs attached to their computers — Harvard administrators misguidedly threatened disciplinary action.

On Friday, Associate Dean for Student Engagement Jason R. Meier informed the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee that the sit-in was “a violation of Harvard’s policies and participants may be subject to follow-up as appropriate.”

That may be the case — but the policy itself is absurd.

Students with keffiyehs and PSC laptop stickers have become a common sight on campus, making it impossible to tell the difference between a politically active student and a protestor.

We can’t help but wonder: Is every student in a Trump hat or Harris t-shirt protesting? The administration is powerless to tell the difference. Their sweeping policy only invites profiling, and we applaud the protestors for laying bare the University’s hypocrisy.

This recent form of protest is unobjectionable. It conveyed its message with minimal disruption to the function of the University and aligned with the spirit of Harvard’s Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, the University-wide document that regulates student protest.

Furthermore, administrators made far more noise taking students’ ID numbers in the Loker reading room than the protesters themselves: If the University truly cared about preventing disruptions in Widener Library, they would not have made a ruckus interfering with the demonstration.

Last year’s chaos arose from a patchwork of rules enforced completely ad hoc. We demand more clarity: Why was this study-in considered a protest? Was it because there were signs affixed to laptops? Was it because the PSC and affiliated groups publicized it as such? And why did Harvard suddenly decide to start enforcing these rules?

As every liberal arts student knows, one must follow his or her argument through to its logical conclusion: If a professor posts a sign to their classroom door notifying students that class had been moved, we can’t imagine they would be disciplined. Yet Harvard takes issue with student activists’ “unapproved signage.”

Harvard needs to learn a lesson. Its guidelines were always inane, and now — between the chalking regulations and its response to the study-in — that inanity is on full display.

We’re not saying protest should be unregulated. The sensible response is a set of reasonable rules paired with consistent, even-handed enforcement.

That said, it’s worth considering the origins of the fatuous “no demonstration in libraries” policy, which was almost certainly crafted in response to the PSC’s Widener study-in last December.

Harvard’s policies should not be designed to win favor with a hostile Congress. What we need is a sensible set of protest guidelines informed by input from faculty and students — those who learn, live, and teach here.

The University’s current policies — and their seemingly subjective enforcement — are a step beyond inane. They are reactionary and targeted.

Harvard must do better.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics