Harvard Faculty Votes to Reinstate 13 ‘Encampment’ Seniors Barred from Graduation

The faculty of Harvard University voted overwhelmingly Monday to reinstate 13 seniors who had been denied permission to graduate by Harvard’s administrative board due to their actions in the pro-Palestinian “encampment.”

The Harvard Crimson reported:

Members of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences overwhelmingly voted to add 13 students back to the list of degrees recommended for conferral in May after the students were initially barred from graduating at Commencement over their participation in the pro-Palestine encampment.

The vote, which took place at the FAS’ degree meeting Monday afternoon, amounted to a stunning rebuke of the Harvard College Administrative Board’s decision to suspend five students and place at least 20 more on probation for violating University policies during the 20-day encampment in Harvard Yard.

…

The matter will now be passed along to Harvard’s governing boards: the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers. According to the University’s governing statutes, following faculty approval, degrees are conferred “by vote of the Corporation, with the consent of the Overseers.”

The vote sets up a fight between the faculty and the powerful “Ad Board.”

The “encampment” disrupted campus life for nearly three weeks, staging protests in the middle of the final exam period. Jewish students said that they felt unsafe, especially given the use of antisemitic, militant slogans.

Harvard effectively granted many of the activists’ demands, including meetings to discuss divesting from Israel.

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.