Harvard Divinity School students suspended from campus library for holding pro-Palestinian ‘prayer service’

Some students at Harvard Divinity School were recently suspended from the campus library for two weeks after staging a “prayer” demonstration there in solidarity with Palestinians. ongoing Israel-Hamas warAccording to published reports.

Divinity School Dean Marla F. Frederick confirmed the suspensions in a message to the school community on Monday. A report published in the Harvard CrimsonThe university’s student newspaper.

“At HDS, we honor the importance of prayer and what it represents for so many. As a colleague recently reminded us, ‘prayer is protest,’ Frederick wrote, according to the Crimson. “Defending the causes of oppressed people in Israel, Gaza or other parts of the world is in itself a noble act.”

But the prayer protest at the Divinity School library violated university rules banning demonstrations in libraries, the Crimson reported.

“These are the rules we have now, and therefore we must abide by them,” Frederick wrote, according to the Crimson; He did not specify when the prayer ceremony took place or how many students were sanctioned.

Spokespeople for the Divinity School did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last month, 25 Harvard faculty members were suspended from the main campus library. organized a demonstration There, they criticized the university’s decision to bar more than a dozen pro-Palestinian students from the building for two weeks because they were staging a nonviolent protest.

Also last month, the student advocacy group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine released a statement saying more than 60 law students studying at Langdell Library had also lost their library privileges.

Harvard Librarian Martha Whitehead wrote: “A community of people displaying signs transforms the reading room from a place of individual learning and reflection into a forum for public statements.” An article published last month on a university website.

Whitehead warned that “if our library spaces become sites of protest and demonstration, silent or not, whatever the message, they will be diverted from their vital role as places of learning and research.”

“There is a serious tension between the ideals that HDS claims to support and the consequences it imposes on students who live those ideals,” Stephanie L. Tabashneck, a Divinity School student who helped organize the prayer service, told the Crimson. .”

According to Crimson, during the 45-minute show, students prayed over religious texts, including the Quran, Torah and Bible.

“Divinity School students were peacefully gathering and praying in the library, and the idea that praying would lead to sanctions is inconsistent with democracy and the values ​​of the Divinity School,” Tabashneck told the Crimson.

He did not immediately respond to the Globe’s request for comment.

This report used material from previous Globe stories. This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.

Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected].