OccupyHarvard

From The Harvard Crimson, 11/22/2011.

From The Harvard Crimson, 11/28/2011.

watchthespace:

#OWS gets real. The #Occupy Vision Statement. Beautiful. 

socialismartnature:

Once again, the pursuit of public accountability compels me to release this second message in as many weeks from the Harvard University administration to all students, staff, and faculty on the topic of Occupy Harvard (see below).

I find it interesting that the President continues to assert here that the complete lock-down of the campus gates is, at least in part, for the “safety of the Occupiers,” despite the fact that Occupy Harvard has made abundantly clear its opposition to this measure.

Moreover, she refers to the safety of the first-year undergrads who live within the gates of Harvard Yard, despite the fact that the overwhelming sentiment of students within and without the Yard is that the security lock-down needs to end.

False justifications aside, the reality is that the 1% who control the Harvard Corporation which runs Harvard University have locked-down the campus, not because of any physical security threat posed to the students, staff, or faculty by the presence of the Occupy encampment, but rather because of the threat this encampment poses to the unquestioned supremacy of the aforementioned 1% at Harvard and in the world. 

The Harvard executives are frightened that our movement might actually affect some fundamental changes at Harvard (and the world) — changes that would seek to undo the damage wrought by the ruling elites who treat Harvard as their playground, their country-club, their fortress, as against a world that only has meaning for these elites insofar as they can profit from it.

By shutting down the campus, they hope to isolate the movement so that it neither spreads to, nor gains strength from, the outside world. For them, the Occupy phenomenon is a metastasizing cancer to be destroyed; for us, it is the unfurling hope of a brighter future. 

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Dear Members of the Harvard Community:

Over the past twelve days, I have heard from many members of our community about events related to the national Occupy movement, Occupy Harvard, the encampment in Harvard Yard, and the judgments we’ve made at the University related to access to the Yard.  As we approach the Thanksgiving break, I want to take this occasion to share more fully some of the principles and realities that have informed our decisions and actions, and to update you on plans for Yard access.

The values of free speech and the commitment to the safety of students, faculty, and staff have been fundamental in our considerations.  To sustain both these goals, we decided to limit access to the Yard to Harvard ID holders and authorized visitors.  All members of the Harvard community have full ability to enter the Yard and express their views, and the rest of the campus remains open as usual for all voices and participants in the debate.  Over the past nearly two weeks, the Occupy Harvard group has held meetings, rallies, and information sessions, significantly shaping the broader community discourse.  Occupants have camped safely in the Yard, and have gathered with others outside the community in demonstrations and rallies at the ART, in the IOP Forum, in Harvard Square, and at other locations.  Forums have been held in many undergraduate houses, at the Harvard Political Union, and online.  We have sought throughout to affirm the rights of the demonstrators to express their views, on and off campus, while simultaneously protecting the safety and security of our freshmen residences.  We have heard from many freshmen and parents that they appreciate the efforts to safeguard the students’ living space.

Our concern about the safety of our students has been greatly influenced by our observations of the behavior of outsiders who participated in the demonstrations on Wednesday, November 9, as well as by web postings from individuals outside Harvard urging confrontation and disruption on our campus.  Several hundred people converged on the Harvard campus that night.  The conduct of many of them was deeply troubling.  Some attempted to enter the Yard by force, assaulted at least one Harvard police officer, grabbing his gun belt and stealing his radio.  The crowd included individuals who, according to external law enforcement agencies, have engaged in violent behavior elsewhere with the explicit goal of causing disruption and with little connection to any particular cause.  Incidents of violence—including shootings and sexual assaults—have occurred at other Occupy sites.

Our responsibilities for the safety of the Harvard community compelled us to take measures to ensure that individuals whose intentions were not peaceful could not encamp in Harvard Yard or create an environment of violence and intimidation that would dampen everyone’s freedom.  We want to do everything possible to maintain the character of peaceful interaction that has prevailed in the Yard since the Occupy Harvard supporters erected their tents.  Our decision to monitor access to the Yard was not to limit our own students and faculty but rather to ensure their safety, including that of the nearly 1,400 first semester freshmen who live in the close vicinity of the encampment.

From the beginning, Campus Services, Yard Operations, Harvard Police, and others have worked hard to minimize the disruption or inconvenience caused by the ID-checking system now in place.  Within 24 hours of the new Yard protocols, the Campus Service Center set up a system for facilitating Yard access for guests, Extension School students, lecturers, Memorial Church parishioners, and others in need of Yard access.  While the system has no doubt been imperfect, it has nonetheless facilitated access to the Yard for nearly 3,000 visitors, and has enabled hundreds of Yard-based academic programs, visits, and community events to go on as planned.

Out of our concern for the safety of those Occupiers currently camped in the Yard, and our concern for the security and well-being of those who live in the Yard, we are planning to maintain a system of ID-checking for Yard access for the time being.  To further facilitate access and decrease disruption, we will be opening two additional gates during daylight hours after Thanksgiving, and will continue to do all that we can to arrange for academic and other University-related programming in the Yard.  As before, access for guests can be arranged through Campus Service Center at campusservicecenter@harvard.edu.

Sustaining both freedom and security always requires difficult and nuanced judgments, both in a university and in the wider world.  We have endeavored to make those determinations in the context of our ideals and obligations.  We meet regularly to evaluate our decision, as we have no interest in restricting access to the Yard for a day longer than we believe necessary.  While we believe the current Yard access protocols remain warranted, we know others can and will disagree.  These issues are being debated on campus, and I view that as a good thing.  Members of my administration have reached out to representatives from Occupy Harvard to discuss the balance we seek to strike, and I spoke today with several Occupy Harvard students at my regularly scheduled office hours.  As President, I am deeply committed to freedom of expression: it is a fundamental university value, defining our most essential purposes.  I am also committed to sustaining the environment in which that freedom can thrive.  These principles have guided our decisions to date, and will guide them going forward.

Sincerely,
Drew Faust

©2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College  |  Harvard.edu

Hard copies available at the info desk in Harvard Yard.

socialismartnature:

American youth have realised the dream they have been prepared for won’t happen - now they fight for a fair future.

Something is unravelling in America. The dream, the purpose and the drive are worn and tired. The people are under siege.

In Boston - an American city with a storied revolutionary past - an Occupy nucleus quickly took root and developed. Protesters here channelled the city’s potent symbolism by building their encampment across the street from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Shortly thereafter thousands of labour union members, regular citizens and students from local universities joined the Occupy Boston movement to march for the restoration of their economic and political rights.

Weeks later, on November 9, several hundred students, faculty and staff and members of the community employed the lessons learned in New York and Boston to occupy Harvard.

We collected in the heart of the university, marched along its breadth and out into the surrounding community to protest university policies. Most visibly, there is evidence that Harvard holds investments in funds that derive profits from speculative land acquisition in Tanzania.

Harvard and the one per cent

Nor is it clear that a code of ethics is being effectively communicated to young and impressionable students. An outsized number of undergraduates here - roughly 20 per cent of every class - enter the financial services industry upon leaving the university.

Or as Public Policy Professor Tim McCarthy put it to me, “At Harvard, we would like to believe that this is an institution that works solely on behalf of the broader good, and there are many instances where we try to do just that. But in reality Harvard, as an institution, is also a factory that produces the one per cent, the very people who have caused a great deal of our present suffering.”

Indeed, the university has likely produced more privilege than any other in America. While that alone is not a meaningful indictment, too many students employ their privilege in service of their own needs, often at the expense of their fellow citizens. Their decisions are the rational product of a society that has failed to provide them with better choices.

 … Towards the end of our march, we turned back in the direction of the yard at the heart of the university. We found that security guards and police had sealed the gates; we were locked out. As I looked on, I was stricken by the allegory. Here was our America. An America of gates and gatekeepers.