It is tempting to overuse the “Munich analogy” but something about the way Harvard University proudly announced the negotiated settlement of the Harvard Yard encampment problem brought to mind the image of Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper and proclaiming “Peace in our time.” For his role as a peacemaker, interim President Alan Garber was immediately lauded in progressive quarters for having achieved a “peaceful outcome … that had eluded some other colleges and universities where officials have resorted to calling the police to clear demonstrators.”
But calling the police to deal with unlawful conduct is proper. That is why we have police. What is not proper is capitulation. Even worse is ignominious capitulation. That is what just happened on the Charles River.
Three weeks ago, protesters styling themselves “Harvard Out Of Palestine” (HOOP) set up an encampment in Harvard Yard to protest Harvard’s supposed connection to the war in Gaza. No one questions their right to protest. But trespassing is another matter. After tolerating the tent city for 12 days, President Garber issued a statement that declared, in essence, “Enough.”
He noted that the encampment was causing numerous disruptions to the University. Exams had to be moved to other locations. Safety concerns over students sleeping outdoors required limiting access to the Yard. Students complained that the campers’ noise made it impossible for them to sleep, and the congestion made it impossible to move freely about the campus. President Garber cited reports that non-protesting students were being “intimidated and harassed,” and that passers-by were being “confronted, surveilled, and followed.”
President Garber concluded his statement with a stern warning:
I write today with this simple message: The continuation of the encampment presents a significant risk to the educational environment of the University. Those who participate in or perpetuate its continuation will be referred for involuntary leave from their Schools. Among other implications, students placed on involuntary leave may not be able to sit for exams, may not continue to reside in Harvard housing, and must cease to be present on campus until reinstated. (emphasis in original)
That was then.
Yesterday, President Garber issued a second statement. In sterile, lawyer-like language, he conceded to all of the protesters’ demands.
“I will facilitate a meeting with the chair of the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and other University officials to address questions about the endowment.”
Translation: Harvard will formally discuss divesting from Israel.
“I will meet with students to hear their perspectives on academic matters related to longstanding conflicts in the Middle East.”
Translation: Harvard will consider establishing a Palestine Studies Center.
“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.”
Translation: There will be no consequences for the unlawful and dangerous occupation of Harvard Yard, nor for the harassment , intimidation, and surveillance of the occupiers’ fellow students.
In case President Garber’s abstruse language fooled anyone, HOOP provided a detailed description of the concessions they had won on their X (formerly Twitter) page:
As a pre-condition of decamping, [the] administration will retract suspensions. [The] administration has also offered us meetings regarding disclosure and divestment with members of the Harvard Management Company and “conversations” regarding the establishment of a Center for Palestine Studies at Harvard.
An allied group called “Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine” proclaimed the result “a victory for the student protesters,” and observed that HOOP had “demonstrated how to hold our University accountable to the people who make it run.”
What caused Harvard to retreat from the firm, principled announcement on the 12th day of the encampment to the capitulation on the 20th?
The answer is simple. Harvard wanted neither the image of unlawful trespassers occupying the Yard, nor the even worse image of law enforcement physically removing them, to interfere with Commencement Exercises, scheduled for May 23. It decided that peace was worth the price of capitulation.
This was a bad deal.
Whatever else they may be, the protesters who participate in HOOP activities are not stupid. On the contrary. They, like any good students, learn from experience.
In February 2022, the same organization led a campaign to make it impossible for retired Israeli Major General Amos Yadlin to teach at the Kennedy School. They disrupted his classes, forcing him to change classrooms every week. They chanted to drown or discussions. They formed gauntlets outside the classrooms, forcing his students to walk between menacing protesters carrying banners and flags, as they entered or exited.
The University took no action against the protesters.
And so the HOOP protesters were probably not surprised when Harvard capitulated to the encampment demands. They had learned their lesson from the disruptive campaign against Amos Yadlin.
No, the HOOP protesters are not stupid. Nor are they easily mollified. That is another reason Harvard’s capitulation represents a bad deal.
Having learned and relearned the lesson that they can bully the University and escape consequences, they may be expected to keep going. In fact, they have already promised that they will do just that. In their X page, in reference to Harvard’s concessions, they note: “These side-deals are intended to pacify us away from full disclosure and divestment. Rest assured, they will not.”
Harvard may have purchased a temporary truce, long enough to hold their Commencement Exercises in peace. But further payments will be demanded in September, when classes resume, and the price will be higher. It will not suffice for the University to merely put divestment and the Center for Palestine Studies on its agenda. Those demands will have to be actually met.
And it won’t stop there. The protesters will demand that Harvard comply with the BDS movement, and terminate its relationships with Israeli professors and institutions. Indeed, the Harvard Crimson editorial board has already endorsed that position.
The protesters will demand that Harvard object not only to Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank, but that Harvard object to Israel’s very existence. The founding statement of the so-called Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine implicitly takes that position already, declaring:
The unfolding genocide in Gaza cannot be disconnected from over 75 years of violent dispossession of the Palestinian people … [and] Israeli occupation and its colonial, racial violence.
Note that number: 75 years. That dates back to 1949, and the conclusion of the War of Independence. Israel had no control over Gaza or the West Bank then, and would not until 1967. The statement is an indictment, not of Israel’s policies toward those territories, but to its existence as an independent country.
That is where the protests are heading. And the protesters, having learned that disruption and encampment are cost-free tools to be used to gain leverage, will wield them again and again to advance their positions.
This will not stop until Harvard selects leaders with spines more substantial than gelatin. We have seen that Harvard, and many other institutions of higher learning, are populated with Chamberlains.
Where are the Churchills?
toputitbluntly.com 
Harvard should state that any review of Israel linked investments COULD result in a decision to increase Harvard’s holdings .
After all , politically motivated divestments may result in a undervaluation and concomitant market opportunity .
In other words YOU SELL , WE BUY .
Human lives are at stake here, not just your filthy money.
I hope your “translations” prove inaccurate. A “meeting… to address questions about the endowment” could end with the CCSR saying, “No.” “Listening to perspectives on academic matters related to longstanding conflicts in the Middle East” could end with “Thank you for your comments.” “Applicable reinstatement proceedings” might take 90 days so that, at the very least, involved students will be excluded from Commencement – or lose academic credit for their missed exams; “expeditious evaluation of involuntary leaves of absence” might mean that some students learn shortly that they are suspended for a semester or a year. I remain hopeful. We shall see. As we saw, many of the demonstrators are idiots who did not engage in violence or bullying or property destruction, and deserve to be treated like foolish children.
This push for boycott and divestment is puzzling to me. First, a boycott of Israeli goods – advanced microprocessors, medical equipment, encryption technology – is totally impractical and would cripple the boycotters. Will HOOP really give up their iPhones and computers and stop using the Internet? Divestment merely means that others will pick up the shares, possibly at a bargain price – for South Africa, divestment meant that those companies completed stock buybacks on extremely advantageous terms, strengthening their balance sheets.
This Crimson article and this one suggest that this time is indeed different.
It would be unfortunate if “these students were given false impressions” — but that only reflects their poor critical reading skills. Law firms and judges evidently have good reason to be reluctant to hire anyone associated with the encampment.