The pro-Hamas “encampment” in Harvard Yard ended Tuesday morning after Harvard University officials agreed to reverse the suspensions of nearly two dozen participants, and to offer activists meetings on divesting from Israel.
The Harvard Crimson reported:
The decision to peacefully end the encampment came after University President Alan M. Garber ’76 and HOOP organizers negotiated a peaceful end to the protest. Garber’s administration agreed to promptly begin reinstating at least 22 students from involuntary leaves of absence and offered protesters a meeting with members of the University’s governing boards about divestment.
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The University also agreed to expedite Administrative Board cases for more than 60 students facing charges for their involvement in the encampment with “precedents of leniency for similar actions in the past,” according to the press release.
Members of the encampment will also meet with Garber and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra to discuss their perspectives on the Israel-Hamas war, according to Swain. HOOP signaled in its Tuesday morning press release that it intended to raise the possibility of establishing a center for Palestine studies in its meeting with Hoekstra.
Harvard agreed to a deal with the pro-Hamas activists on the day that preparations began for Harvard’s May 22 graduation in Harvard Yard.
Harvard becomes the latest university to capitulate to anti-Israel activists at the nationwide “encampments,” despite their violations of common rules of conduct and their frequent use of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery against Israel.
The Harvard “encampment” was noteworthy for the fact that activists took down the American flag in Harvard Yard and raised the Palestinian flag in its place. It is no longer clear that the students who did so will face punishment.
Harvard has become the butt of jokes for its descent into anti-Israel and antisemitic hysteria. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld — who himself faced a small walkout by pro-Palestinian students at commencements ceremonies for Duke University last weekend — told Duke that his writers for Seinfeld had come from Harvard.
“I’m not talking about Harvard now. I’m talking about the way it used to be,” Seinfeld quipped, to laughter.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
