Response to Harvard President Garber's orders that protesting students be placed on “involuntary leave"

A call to focus on the real crimes at Harvard

May 7, 2024

Alan M. Garber 

Interim President

Harvard University

Dear President Garber,

I wish to respond to the letter that you sent out to all students, faculty, and staff concerning the encampment organized by students in Harvard Yard in protest against the genocide campaign being carried out in Gaza.

As your demands of the students far exceed the authority invested in you as the President of Harvard, and because you focused exclusively on the minor infractions of regulations by the protesters while ignoring the far more serious illegal actions being undertaken by the staff and faculty of Harvard University, the Harvard Corporation and its members, and the Board of Overseers and its members, I request humbly that we begin an open conversation about all of the unethical, illegal, and unconstitutional actions taking place at Harvard University and the Harvard Corporation.

I demand that you cease this dishonest effort to single out the sincere students who are trying to carry out their ethical responsibility as citizens by protesting against terrible acts of violence taking place in Gaza. Although the students, like many of us, may not fully understand the complexity of the issues involved, their commitment to the combination academic inquiry with moral action is to be praised and it has deep roots in the scholarly traditions from which Harvard derives its legitimacy.

Let us be honest with ourselves. Harvard University has taken enormous amounts of money, often in classified programs hidden from the public, and also in unclassified programs, from the military and intelligence of the United States, and from military and intelligence contractors, that involve activities that are not about national defense at all, but are clearly unethical and illegal. And yet, you are not demanding that those involved in these programs, or in the classified “anti-disinformation” operations run on campus by contractors using Homeland Security budgets, be stopped, or that those involved be dismissed from their jobs.

Moreover, Harvard faculty and staff have been intimately involved in covering up, in promoting false narratives about, and in justifying three major state crimes that have devastated our nation.

The first is the 9.11 incident, a blatant false flag attack on our citizens that was carried out by corrupt factions of the military and intelligence of the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and other players as an excuse to launch an endless war that has killed millions and to create extensive secret governance in the United States that has eviscerated the Constitution.

Harvard University refuses to even permit serious discussion of the 9.11 incident on campus, let alone to take action against Harvard faculty and staff who collaborated in this operation by promoting false science, distributing misleading narratives, and ridiculing those who insisted on accurate analysis.

The second is the use of the Federal Reserve to generate tens of trillions of dollars for private equity, multinational banks, and other financial institutions under the headings of “quantitative easing,” “COVID relief,” and “market stimulus.” This massive theft of money from the American people, literally the counterfeiting of money by private banks with the approval of the Department of the Treasury, was carried out in plain view of Harvard’s distinguished experts in economics and government policy.

Harvard University openly promoted false narratives about the United States economy, in its publications, in the Department of Economics and the Business School, and elsewhere, thereby whitewashing the situation, or blatantly misleading students and the public, about this monetary fraud that has destroyed our economy and created an unprecedented concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

This academic dishonesty is the direct result of the presence of billionaires, many of whom made billions from this operation, on the board of the Harvard Corporation, as well as the decision of the previous Harvard President Professor Drew Faust to join the board of directors of Goldman Sachs in a blatant conflict of interest regarding the Havard University endowment.

The third example of Harvard’s complicity in state crimes can be found in the intimate collaboration of Harvard’s faculty, staff, and the board of the Harvard Corporation in the promotion of the COVID-19 military-intelligence-media-pharmaceutical operation to promote a bogus pandemic, to endorse vaccines that were designed to maim and kill, and to enforce marital law in the United States under the name of “lockdowns” in blatant violation of the Constitution, Federal Law, state law, and fundamental human rights.

To this date, Harvard University refuses to address the piles of evidence documenting this criminal conspiracy, one that has killed millions, and crippled tens of millions. Harvard University discourages, or suppresses outright, scientific investigations into this political and economic scheme for global domination by a handful of the super-rich.

In fact, Harvard University has not even admitted that there was anything wrong about the COVID 19 regulations that it heartlessly enforced, and states even today on its website, “We strongly recommend that all members of the Harvard community stay up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters if eligible.”

You yourself, President Garber, were directly involved in that operation when you served as provost, and as professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. You carried out dangerous, illegal, and unethical policies and promoted injurious and unscientific regulations at Harvard, and across the nation.

You state in your letter, “As an academic institution, we do not shy away from hard and important questions.” But, in fact, unlike the protesting students, you have shied away from any questions regarding criminal actions at Harvard of the most serious nature. You write that the demonstrations of students to demand real debate, “[do] not require, or justify, interfering with the educational environment and Harvard’s academic mission.” In reality, it has been the faculty, and the Harvard Corporation behind them, who have interfered grotesquely in Harvard’s academic mission, and not the students. 

You write that, “Our disagreements are most effectively addressed through candid, constructive dialogue, building not on disruption, but on facts and reason.” Yet you have promoted unscientific and dishonest narratives in the classes taught, and the publications issued, by Harvard University.

The collaborators in these great state crimes at Harvard are free to do what they like; the students who rightfully demand an end to the killing in Gaza are threatened with “involuntary leave,” a neologism, a dishonest and cowardly term, made up to the describe draconian punishments of students for engaging in legitimate political protest that will be enforced without due process.

The truth is that there already exist regulations to protect students, and to enforce regulations on campus. You are not empowered in any sense to make up new commands out of thin air.  

I also want to note the dishonesty of your statement: “Safety concerns…have required us to sharply limit access to Harvard Yard.”

I tried to enter Harvard Yard recently and I was turned away by a security guard (not Harvard Police) who refused to explain to me the reason why I could not enter the gate. The restriction on access to the campus was not a result of a concern for security, but rather born of a desire to hide from the nation the clear indignation at Israeli and American policy expressed by a large number of students. My conversations with friends at Harvard made it clear that your claim that the protesters were “the voices of a few” is untrue.

We are prepared to present concrete evidence that a significant part of the staff and faculty of Harvard University, yourself included, have actively collaborated in the promotion of, and the defense of, state crimes, and that you have supported and encouraged the persecution of those who have opposed these state crimes.

Those actions by members of the Harvard staff, the Harvard Corporation members, and Harvard faculty dwarf any infractions of university regulations that students protesting the Gaza genocide may been guilty of. We welcome an honest discussion with you the faculty of Harvard University, and the Harvard Corporation concerning Harvard’s role in abetting these state crimes.

I await your kind response.

Most respectfully,

Emanuel Pastreich

Ph.D., East Asian Languages and Civilizations, 1998

Independent Candidate for President

(mailed on May 7, 2024)

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May 7, 2024

Harvard University Office of the President

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

Over the last 12 days, the encampment in Harvard Yard has disrupted our educational activities and operations. The right to free speech, including protest and dissent, is vital to the work of the research university. But it is not unlimited. It must be exercised in a time, place, and manner that respects the right of our community members to do their work, pursue their education, and enjoy the opportunities that a residential campus has to offer. The encampment favors the voices of a few over the rights of many who have experienced disruption in how they learn and work at a critical time of the semester. I call on those participating in the encampment to end the occupation of Harvard Yard.

The disruptions from this encampment at the heart of the University have been numerous. Harvard College exams and other important activities and events have had to move elsewhere. Safety concerns over the past two weeks, including those raised as a result of students sleeping outdoors overnight, have required us to sharply limit access to Harvard Yard.

Although some community members have said they are undisturbed by these conditions, we continue to hear reports of students whose ability to sleep, study, and move freely about the campus has been disrupted by the actions of the protesters. We are especially troubled by increasing reports that some within, and some supporting, the encampment have intimidated and harassed other members of our community. When Harvard staff have requested to see IDs in order to enforce our policies, supporters of the encampment have at times yelled at them, tried to encircle them, and otherwise interfered with their work. We have also received reports that passers-by have been confronted, surveilled, and followed. Such actions are indefensible and unacceptable.

As first-year students move out and as we begin our extensive preparations for Commencement, this ongoing violation of our policies becomes more consequential. Thousands of family members, friends, and loved ones will soon join us to celebrate the achievements of graduate and undergraduate students who have earned the right to walk in Commencement. This celebration is the culmination of years of hard work and accomplishment. The members of the Class of 2024 deserve to enjoy this milestone uninterrupted and unimpeded. It would be especially painful if students who graduated from high school or college during the pandemic were denied a full graduation ceremony for a second time.

The individuals participating in the activities of the encampment have been informed repeatedly that violations of University and School policies will be subject to disciplinary consequences and that further violations and continued escalation will result in increasingly severe sanctions. Last week, faculties across the University began delivering disciplinary notices to students who continued to participate in unauthorized, disruptive activity in the Yard despite these notices.

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.

Enforcement of these policies, which are essential to our educational mission, is an obligation we owe to our students and the Harvard community more broadly. It is not, as some have suggested, a rejection of discussion and debate about the urgent issues that concern the University, the nation, and the world. As an academic institution, we do not shy away from hard and important questions. There are many ways for our community to engage constructively in reasoned discussion of complex issues, but initiating these difficult and crucial conversations does not require, or justify, interfering with the educational environment and Harvard’s academic mission. Our disagreements are most effectively addressed through candid, constructive dialogue, building not on disruption, but on facts and reason.

Sincerely,

Alan M. Garber 

Interim President

Harvard University

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