Free Speech At Harvard?

Hat tip to our friend Markus over at Dem Apples.

The Harvard Crimson is reporting that the American Civil Liberties Union has discovered that Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) runs a political spying unit. Aside from the meta-concerns like the fact that such a unit would presumably be reading this blog, this is a disturbing though not very surprising revelation.

I have heard stories from people who were involved in the 2001 Living Wage Campaign that corroborate such activity. During the time of the sit-in, campaigners had planned an action that was coordinated partially over email but not advertised publicly at all. When they showed up to the location of the action, HUPD was waiting for them. It seemed that the only way that HUPD could have known the action was taking place was if the authorities had been spying on the group, either electronically or by other means.

More shadiness of this kind took place during the Stand For Security Campaign last year. During the hunger strike and the daily actions that accompanied it, a plainclothes man with a nice camera was taking pictures of us almost every day. I went up to him one day to see what he was taking the pictures for and he told me that they were for the Harvard Gazette. I am sure the Harvard Gazette has photographers, but this guy was there almost every day and he was not taking pictures of things that you would really put into a magazine.

Whether these things are all connected or not, the fact remains that there is a dangerous culture here at Harvard around political speech. From HUPD’s political intelligence unit to arrests of activists (including last year’s arrest of students protesting FBI Director Mueller), Harvard is not a welcoming place for dissent outside of the prescribed (and controlled) “rational discourse.”

At the heart of the American academy there should be the widest latitude given to political dialogue, unfortunately most evidence shows that this is not the case. A group of students here at Harvard are beginning a campaign to broaden the range of free speech and democracy on campus. If you would like to get involved, email HarvardSDS@gmail.com (but you might not want to use an Harvard email account lest HUPD and the FBI find out that you are a terrorist).