Harvard College Disciplinary Cases Tripled in 2023-24 Amid Pro-Palestine Protest Wave

Harvard College’s disciplinary review board tripled its case load during the 2023-24 academic year, calling 90 students to appear for non-academic behavior, according to a report released over the summer.

More than half of students subject to discipline during that period were accused of personally violating protest policies or participating in unsanctioned protests, according to records subpoenaed by a congressional committee. According to the College’s summer report, one student was required to withdraw as a result of an Administrative Board ruling.

Accelerating the upward trend in disciplinary cases that began the year prior, 2023-24 tracked a campus reeling in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel that had come alive with pro-Palestine protest activity. The University also tightened protest rules in early 2024, giving administrators clearer license to hand down disciplinary sanctions. Before 2022, disciplinary cases had been steadily decreasing.

Of the 90 cases reviewed, one student was placed on probation for alcohol misuse, and another was placed on probation for sexual misconduct. In the other 88 disciplinary cases, most of which were connected to protest infractions, 58 students were placed on probation – the highest number reported since at least the 2017-18 year. Students placed on probation are monitored by the Ad Board and can be asked to withdraw if they commit subsequent violations.

Nearly all of the students placed on probation were sanctioned for their participation in the November 2023 pro-Palestine occupation of University Hall and the April-May 2024 pro-Palestine encampment, according to University documents subpoenaed by Congress. Students were charged with violating rules on the use of campus spaces and disrupting normal campus activity.

Thirty-one students were formally admonished but not placed on probation, up from 14 the previous year. Forty-four students were also required to withdraw for academic reasons — not including dishonesty — in the 2023-24 year, according to a separate report.

Harvard College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in a statement that the College “is committed to the transparent reporting of data and ensuring a wide range of information is available to the community.”

Palumbo declined to comment on year-to-year changes in the data.

The Ad Board’s reviews of social behavior have always included sexual misconduct and drug and alcohol offenses, but the volume of protest-related cases that the body oversaw last year was unprecedented. In the midst of the pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard, administrators relied on the threat of Ad Board proceedings to encourage the group to leave.

The Ad Board had initially suspended five students and placed more than 20 students on probation for their involvement in the 20-day Harvard Yard stakeout, but the body later downgraded the suspensions to probations of varying lengths and softened charges against other disciplined students.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra later convened a committee of faculty and administrators to review the Ad Board’s practices after many faculty members and students criticized the disciplinary actions for the pro-Palestine protesters as out of sync with past board precedent.

Hoekstra agreed to institute recommendations from the committee’s March 2025 report, which included only allowing appeals from students who were required to withdraw from the College as a result of their sanctions and instituting a minimum requirement for the number of tenured faculty serving on the Ad Board.

Since the 2023-24 academic year, the number of protests has substantially decreased, and campus pro-Palestine groups have not staged any high-profile demonstrations like the building occupation and the encampment that followed October 2023.

Instead, as Harvard became a face of resistance to the Trump administration amid fights over federal funding and international enrollment, protests have largely been organized in support of the University and against the U.S. president. None have triggered disciplinary action.

—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastav