Harvard’s border wall to exclude the undocumented

by philg

Harvard’s best and brightest minds have proved Scientifically that border walls don’t work (see this 2019 Harvard Gazette story, for example, and “Laurence Tribe sues Trump over border wall” (MSNBC coverage of the Harvard Law School prof’s fight to keep the border open)).

This week, however, Harvard Yard is closed to the undocumented and the border fence is guarded by police. Photos from last night:

Harvard Square (the commercial area adjacent to Harvard Yard) is still open. Anyone wanting to protest against homelessness and/or assist homeless people was free to do so. However, we didn’t see any students or professional progressives stop to try to help the people sleeping on the sidewalk right in the heart of Harvard Square:

The local public high school does have an official government banner reminding people that one group of humans deserves special attention, but the group is not the noble Gazans:

Circling back to the border wall built by people who say that border walls are immoral and impractical… “Harvard Yard Closed Until Friday in Anticipation of Pro-Palestine Protests” (Crimson):

The University restricted access to Harvard Yard until Friday afternoon in apparent anticipation of student protests, amid a wave of high-profile pro-Palestine demonstrations at universities across the country including Columbia University and Yale University.

The closures are a sign that Harvard’s leadership is hoping to avoid its own version of the scene at Columbia, where more than 100 students were arrested Thursday by the New York City Police Department for their participation in an ongoing pro-Palestine encampment on the school’s main quad.

An announcement of the closure, posted to Yard entrance gates, warned of disciplinary measures against Harvard students and affiliates who bring in unauthorized structures such as tents or tables or block access to building entrances.

An email sent to students and staff who work in the Yard stated that the closures are being done “out of an abundance of caution and with the safety of our community as a priority.”

Note how “abundance of caution”, the leitmotif of the Covidcrats, was woven in! Also that “safety” is the most important goal for a human, not liberating Al-Quds, destroying the Zionist entity, or stopping a genocide and famine that is intensified by a population explosion (60,000 pregnant women, an unspecified number of pregnant people of other genders, and more than 183 births per day (source)).

The arrests at Columbia sparked a wave of solidarity protests at universities across the country, including at Harvard, where more than 200 Harvard affiliates rallied in Harvard Yard Friday demanding that the University “disclose and divest” from Israeli companies and investments in the West Bank.

The rally at Harvard was co-organized by a coalition of recognized and unrecognized pro-Palestine groups. Unrecognized activist organizations — including the African and African American Resistance Organization and Jews for Palestine, which staged an occupation of University Hall in November — have increasingly led pro-Palestine organizing on campus.

The University “shifted to HUID access only to stay ahead of potential issues with non-Harvard recognized groups,” College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in a statement to The Crimson on Sunday.

Apologies if the photos are blurry. I’m here in Cambridge after five days in a Robinson R44 and my hands are still shaking a little. The trip was from Los Angeles to Great Barrington, Maskachusetts. Within 30 minutes after arriving in Massachusetts, I was offered free marijuana samples from one of the “essential” businesses that was allowed to stay open while schools were closed:

Every crosswalk in Great Barrington is painted in the sacred colors:

Not too many people were out and about in Great Barrington on a Tuesday afternoon in the off-season so, though I saw some folks wearing masks I wasn’t able to get a photo of an outdoor masker in a rainbow crosswalk.

Related…

Also, NYU decides that a border wall might work in some circumstances…

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