Harvard’s Lawyers Use Garber Encampment Message Against Jewish Students Who Are Suing

Hours after interim president’s note, it is cited in federal court filing

A Palestinian flag flies from a Harvard window.

Just hours after Harvard interim president Alan Garber sent a message calling on anti-Israel protesters to “end the occupation of Harvard Yard” and threatening to put participants on “involuntary leave,” Harvard’s lawyers cited the action in a court filing seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by Jewish students.

The court filing was due May 6, which may help to explain why Garber, who had let the encampment alone rather than calling in police to clear it or negotiating an end to it, finally spoke out when he did. The encampment protesters had also issued an ultimatum with a May 6 deadline, and the approach of Commencement and reunions also puts a premium on clearing the central area of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus.

Yet in addition to the practical realities on campus, Harvard is facing legal pressure from Jewish students who say, in a federal civil rights lawsuit, “antisemitism at Harvard has been particularly severe and pervasive” and that “Mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty have marched by the hundreds through Harvard’s campus, shouting vile antisemitic slogans and calling for death to Jews and Israel.”