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On Tuesday, hundreds of students and community members rallied outside University Hall to protest Harvard’s premature capitulation to Trump’s attacks on higher education.

On Wednesday, the College proved them right.

In response to the Tuesday rally — hosted by Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, an unrecognized student group — the University placed the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee on probation and prohibited the organization from hosting public events until July.

On its own, Harvard’s grounds for sanctioning the PSC are shaky at best. Against the backdrop of an escalating federal attack on pro-Palestine speech and higher education alike, the decision looks like an ill-fated attempt by our University to contribute to the Palestine exception to free speech with the hopes of saving their own skin.

First things first: The College had no clear basis for disciplining the PSC. Yes, HOOP hosted a rally — which may have violated Harvard’s Campus Use Rules — and yes, PSC shared it on Instagram. But this information alone does not justify Harvard’s response. The PSC did not officially host or sponsor the event, and the PSC claims the College did not even clarify its role in the rally.

Moreover, even if HOOP did violate the rules by using a microphone at a protest — shocking, we know — that suggests the problem is draconian restrictions rather than excessively disruptive protesters. As we’ve argued before, the University has a right to regulate protest, but when it does so, it should err on the side of allowing more speech, rather than less.

We’d like to assume the best of intentions on the part of the College. But this isn’t the first salvo in what’s shaping up to be a siege on pro-Palestine speech — or merely speaking about Palestine at all. In the last month, the University suspended its ties with Birzeit University in the West Bank, dismissed the leaders of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and halted the Harvard Divinity School’s Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative.

Now, the PSC will no longer be able to host pre-planned educational programming on Palestinian history and culture. One by one, Harvard is eliminating every institutional space for the discussion of Palestine.

The timing of these decisions is hardly happenstance. Amid threats to federal funding at peer institutions, it seems our University is being driven by calls coming from the Oval Office, not just Massachusetts Hall.

But, as we’ve argued before, acquiescence is no guarantee of our University’s safety. Indeed, the demands sent to Harvard by the White House last week — including new protest policies and the elimination of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs — show that the Trump administration won’t stop at cracking down on pro-Palestine speech.

And even if obedience could insulate the University from future attacks, reshaping our speech policies at the whim of the White House would be a profound desertion of our values.

The decision to put the PSC on probation won’t keep federal inquisitors at bay — at worst, it may even embolden them.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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