{"id":5173,"date":"2024-06-11T03:14:26","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T03:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=5173"},"modified":"2024-06-11T03:14:27","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T03:14:27","slug":"the-harvard-graduating-students-denied-their-degrees-over-palestine-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=5173","title":{"rendered":"The Harvard graduating students denied their degrees over Palestine protest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The decision by Harvard to delay degrees for 13 students for one year has caused outrage at the university and a mass walkout from its graduation ceremony.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than two weeks have passed since the graduates\u2019 commencement ceremony for 2024 at Harvard University, but Asmer Asrar Safi is still waiting to receive the degree for which he spent four years studying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe situation remains as is, unfortunately,\u201d he tells Al Jazeera from Boston, United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KEEP READING<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Besides Safi, who is originally from Lahore, Pakistan, another 12 students find themselves in the same situation: they are all graduating students at one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world but will not be awarded their degrees for at least one year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvard Corporation, the university\u2019s top governing body, barred these students from receiving their degrees during this year\u2019s graduation ceremony on May 23 on account of their involvement in the three-week pro-Palestine encampment at the university last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am waiting for my appeals decision to come out,\u201d 23-year-old Safi, an international student of social studies and ethnicity, migration and rights at Harvard College, says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am a Rhodes Scholar and trying to ascertain if I can matriculate at the University of Oxford given that my Harvard degree has been withheld for a year, even though I have met all the academic conditions for my programme and have completed my degree requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shraddha Joshi is another student who will not be able to receive her degree, despite having the backing of her faculty at Harvard College, where she was studying in the same programme as Safi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter having completed the appeal application on my end, we seem to be in a limbo as we wait for communication from the university. Students and faculty members are all quite confused by the ambiguity of the process, and the timeline for appeals is unclear,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born and raised in Texas, Joshi had been planning to pursue a master\u2019s degree in sociology in the United Kingdom, but says her future is now uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was supposed to go to the University of Cambridge with the Harvard-UK Fellowship, but my plans are now in flux due to my degree status. The lack of transparency and poor communication from administrators make it difficult to predict what our next steps will look like,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sign up for Al Jazeera<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Americas Coverage Newsletter<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

US politics, Canada\u2019s multiculturalism, South America\u2019s geopolitical rise\u2014we bring you the stories that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academic freedom and the right to protest<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Like many other academic institutions in the US, Harvard University has found itself caught up in an increasingly angry debate about academic freedom and the right to protest over Israel\u2019s ongoing war in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having served as Harvard\u2019s president for just six months, Claudine Gay resigned<\/a> from the position in January this year, following her appearance at a congressional testimony about \u201crising anti-Semitism\u201d on the college campus in December 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The encampment at Harvard University lasted for three weeks [Courtesy of Shraddha Joshi]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In her resignation letter, Gay, the university\u2019s first Black president and only the second woman to take the role in its 388-year history, cited personal attacks \u201cfuelled by racial animus\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her resignation came following pressure on her to step down as she also faced allegations of plagiarism about her academic work which surfaced soon after the congressional hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, students at Columbia University, an Ivy League college in New York, began an encampment on their campus grounds in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza. They demanded that their university divest from companies linked to or doing business with Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The protest movement grew rapidly across the country, with encampments appearing at more than 30 other universities<\/a>, including Harvard, where the student protest encampment began on April 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The demand by students at the Harvard encampment, much like the rest of the college campuses in the US, was for a full disclosure of Harvard\u2019s investments in companies linked to Israel and divestment from those companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following negotiations between the university administration and the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) coalition, which was leading the protest, the encampment was disbanded on May 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To reach an agreement to end the encampment, Harvard, which had placed more than 20 students on \u201cinvoluntary leave\u201d, agreed to begin the process of reinstating those students and offered protesters a meeting with members of the university\u2019s governing boards about divestment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 14, Harvard interim president Alan Garber said: \u201cWith the disruption to the educational environment caused by the encampment now abated, I will ask that the schools promptly initiate applicable reinstatement proceedings for all individuals who have been placed on involuntary leaves of absence. I will also ask disciplinary boards within each school to evaluate expeditiously, according to their existing practices and precedents, the cases of those who participated in the encampment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The protesting students accepted this outcome and decided to disband the encampment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the protest tactic exhausted its utility, we realised that it was best to shift gears and move forward with organising along different lines,\u201d says Safi. \u201cYet, while we stuck to our half of the agreement, the university did not and continued to discipline all of us in unprecedented ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joshi, who was not a camper herself but acted as a liaison with the college administration on behalf of the protesters, was among the group of more than 20 students who were placed on \u201cinvoluntary leave\u201d and asked to leave the Harvard campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the university\u2019s promise to begin reinstating those students, however, she says: \u201cOn May 17, I was told verbally that Harvard\u2019s administrative board had chosen to place me on probation until May 2025, withholding my degree until then. This decision was confirmed in writing on Monday, May 20, affecting myself and 12 others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Al Jazeera asked Harvard University to explain this decision, a spokesman said: \u201cI will refer you to President Garber\u2019s communication written to the representatives of those participating in the encampment. It does not speak to the outcome of disciplinary processes, rather it indicates he would encourage disciplinary bodies to move their processes forward expeditiously, in line with their existing precedents and practices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Centring \u2018complicity\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Student protesters at Harvard say the emergence of the solidarity encampment on their campus was not an \u201cisolated event\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The student encampment at Harvard University was attended by hundreds of students from different schools of Harvard [Courtesy of Shraddha Joshi]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There had been numerous vigils, awareness campaigns as well as protest rallies across the campus, with the pro-Palestine students organising events that were more focused on educational and cultural events, even prior to the October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-October, the group\u2019s advocacy efforts have been mostly centred on protesting against \u201cHarvard\u2019s complicity\u201d in the events in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safi says he has been working on pro-Palestine causes at the Harvard campus since 2020, helping organise various events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShraddha and I have planned various events regarding our divestment campaign, which has grown tremendously over the last few months, with students being forced to contend with the university\u2019s complicity in the crimes committed against Palestinians,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joshi adds that the students faced a large amount of harassment and pressure from counter-protesters, which she says was part of a broader trend of anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim racism and discrimination. The faces and identities of some protesters were posted to social media accounts opposed to the protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had trucks on Harvard campus doxing us, targeting pro-Palestine students, with our names and faces being paraded on campus, and none of this was condemned or stopped by the university,\u201d says Joshi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvard University told Al Jazeera that it does take this sort of harassment seriously. A spokesman pointed to the fact that in January, President Garber announced a new Presidential Task Force on Combatting Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously, in October last year, a university-wide message was sent out by Executive Vice President Meredith Weenick acknowledging safety concerns among Muslim students and \u201cclearly stating that we do not condone or ignore intimidation or threats or acts of harassment or violence\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not enough, say the protesters. \u201cStudents do not simply protest for fun or to make noise without reason. Students across Harvard chose to establish the encampment only when all avenues were exhausted and having doors slammed in their faces when they mentioned Palestine,\u201d Joshi adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safi says the decision to establish an encampment was in line with other protest movements on Harvard\u2019s campus in the past, including protests that called for divestment from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is this repression, and this unwillingness to initiate conversations on the part of the administration, that led to the establishment of the encampment. Yet, we have only seen the repression worsen since the establishment of the Gaza solidarity encampment,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the wave of protests across US college campuses<\/a> picked up pace and grew in strength earlier this year, some college administrators resorted to using force, calling in law enforcement to disperse protesters and encampments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the administration at Harvard did not call in police, Joshi says that the encampment, which lasted for three weeks, ended with an agreement to decamp peacefully on the understanding that there would be a \u201cgood faith effort\u201d from university administrators to process student disciplinary sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, \u201cHarvard leveraged disciplinary sanctions to intimidate students\u201d, claims Joshi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn May 10, four days after an email was sent from Interim President Alan Garber threatening involuntary leave to students, notices were sent out to several students \u2013 campers and non-campers alike \u2013 including myself,\u201d Joshi, who was not part of the encampment but was entrusted with the task of liaising with the administration, says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 18, Safi posted a message on social media platform X with the news that the university had decided to withhold the degrees of several graduate students for one year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2024\/6\/9\/the-harvard-graduating-students-denied-their-degrees-over-palestine-protest<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The decision by Harvard to delay degrees for 13 students for one year has caused outrage at the university and a mass walkout from its graduation ceremony. More than two weeks have passed since the graduates\u2019 commencement ceremony for 2024 at Harvard University, but Asmer Asrar Safi is still waiting to receive the degree for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[58,29,893,105,1644,52,36,51,40,1645],"class_list":["post-5173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-america","tag-china","tag-gaza","tag-geopolitics-2","tag-havard","tag-israel","tag-pakistan","tag-palestine","tag-us","tag-student-protest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5175,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5173\/revisions\/5175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}