HLS Closes Student Lounge Before Planned Protest, Renewing Clash Between Activists and Admin

After Harvard Law School students announced plans to hold a protest on Wednesday in the Haas Lounge against President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Israel’s war in Gaza, HLS administrators closed the space hours before the protest was set to start.

Though the demonstration occurred outside the building without interruptions, the decision sparked another flare-up over restrictions on the Haas Lounge, which has traditionally been a site of student protests — sometimes over administrators’ objections.

Since the fall of 2023, HLS Administrators have repeatedly sent reminders prohibiting unauthorized protests in the space, which students dubbed Belinda Hall in 2016 to honor a woman enslaved by prominent Law School benefactors. Last fall, interim HLS Dean John C.P. Goldberg created a Haas Lounge Committee to review policies on lounge use.

The latest clash began when the Dissent Collective — an unrecognized pro-Palestine student group at HLS — publicized a protest, dubbed “HLS Students Standing Against Fascism!” in social media posts Tuesday.

The event was set to take place shortly after noon on Wednesday. Roughly one hour beforehand, Law School Dean of Students Stephen L. Ball and Dean of Community Engagement Monica E. Monroe sent an email to the student body warning them that students who participated in “unpermitted activities” in the Haas Lounge could be subject to penalties.

Ball and Monroe wrote that the Haas Lounge was not available to be “reserved or used for group events,” adding that the policy against group events applied to both recognized and unrecognized student organizations.

“Because violations may result in disciplinary proceedings that can have professional consequences, we are issuing this reminder about permitted and unpermitted activities,” they added.

By the time the protest was slated to start, the doors to the Haas Lounge were closed, and signs listing four other “designated protest areas from 12 to 1:20pm” were posted on the doors. The lounge did not reopen until after 3 p.m.

Elizabeth A. Feltner, a first-year law student, saw the blocked-off lounge on Wednesday and asked a security guard why it was closed.

“It’s just temporary,” the guard said, according to Feltner.

Kayleigh A. Hasson, a first-year law student who attended the protest, tried to “get through.” But, she said, “there were security guards on both sides of the lounge. Every entrance or exit was cordoned off.”

Instead, dozens of protesters gathered outside to listen to speakers and collectively read poetry. The event proceeded more or less as planned, Hasson said, but participants struggled to keep their fliers and posters from flying away in the brisk wind.

After the protest, organizers slammed the closure as an assault on free speech and a capitulation to Trump.

“Harvard Law administration is doing everything it can to appease our fascist federal government, but to appease fascism is to embrace it, and repressing the student movement will only make it grow,” the Dissent Collective wrote in a statement to The Crimson.

And some students said the closure represented an inconvenience to passersby as well as protesters.

Irene Ameena, a third-year Law School student, said that security made “everyone leave.” Ameena’s friend, who was on crutches, “was trying to get upstairs, and that was just extra hard,” she said.

“It was honestly just more of a nuisance and inconvenience at that point,” Rachel Serebrenik, a third-year Law School student, said.

“I was definitely frustrated by the extreme measures being taken for what students see as truly a space for students. And there was also no notice that it was actually going to be closed,” Serebrenik said.

In a statement to The Crimson, HLS spokesman Jeff Neal wrote that “the temporary closure of lounge space did not interfere with accessibility.”

Neal wrote that “Harvard Law School strongly supports students’ free speech rights” and that “students interested in gathering have available several spaces where protest and dissent is permitted,” but the “use of the Haas Lounge for group activities is not permitted.”

In response to the closure, student protesters taped images to the Haas Lounge windows, including images of the Reclaim Harvard Law Movement in 2016, which staged an occupation of the space to call for racial justice and inclusion at the Law School.

Ameena said she thought the images underscored the significance of the closure.

“It reminded me of the value of that space to students and how eager students are to use that space again,” Ameena said.

—Staff writer Caroline G. Hennigan contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Bradford D. Kimball can be reached at bradford.kimball@thecrimson.com.