PRESS RELEASE: Bacow Commits to Reading Prison Divestment Report, Flip-Flops on Free Speech Position

On Sunday, May 5, 2019, an officer of the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) approached three Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign (HPDC) organizers after they had engaged peacefully with Harvard President Larry Bacow at his “Run with the President” event, co-sponsored by Harvard on the Move. Bacow had already left the grounds of the run and the organizers had begun walking back toward Harvard’s campus when the officer confronted them and, providing no reason or context, insisted on their names and other personal information. Invoking their rights, the organizers declined to speak with him.

The bizarre exchange followed a civil dialogue between Bacow and the organizers at the annual run, at which the organizers kept up their campaign’s commitment to questioning Bacow explicitly and unambiguously about the university’s ties with the prison-industrial complex (PIC). During the run, the organizers handed Bacow the HPDC report that outlines Harvard’s investments in the PIC, investments which total at least 2.7 million dollars, by contrast with the $18,000 figure Bacow had previously quoted. Bacow told the organizers to send the report to him and he committed to commenting on the report by June 1, 2019.

After Bacow made this commitment, the organizers handed him three bottles of dirty water, and stated, “We brought these bottles of dirty water to signify the conditions that prisoners face—many of the same prisons that Harvard is invested in.” Bacow responded that he refused to be “lectured” by the organizers and that he would not take the dirty water. “It’s pretty disgusting, isn’t it?” one organizer responded. “Why would anyone ever want to drink this? Bathe in this? Cook their food with it?” At this point, Bacow stopped listening and walked away.

The organizers then unfurled signs which stated, “Bacow, Stop Running From Accountability” and “Harvard, Divest from Prisons!” Bacow joked with a fellow runner that protests such as these “come with the territory” of being President. One organizer asked, “Do you think that prisons are funny? Do you think that Harvard propping up the prison-industrial complex is funny?”

A Harvard on the Move representative encouraged the group of runners to take a group selfie with President Bacow to upload on the Harvard on the Move Instagram feed. The organizers joined the photo, holding signs in front of their own persons that did not block out any other participants. But the representative told the organizers that there was a “no sign” policy for the Harvard on the Move photos, because they could be not be affiliated with any political movements. Bacow, who published an op-ed in the Crimson in April about the importance of non-disruptive dissent, did not defend the organizers.

Bacow’s personal security guard, an officer with the HUPD, then asked the organizers to take a photo without the selfie. One organizer refused, citing her First Amendment right to simply hold a sign non-disruptively at a public event. Another student asked the organizers to take down their signs. Again, Bacow said nothing. The confrontation between a different HUPD officer and the organizers occurred only after Bacow and potential witnesses, including other students who attended the run, had dispersed.