Harvard shuts Harvard Yard for the week

It's Occupy all over again.

I think the fortification lasted more than a year last time they got spooked.

The perception at Harvard is that they, and potentially all of higher education, are under attack from the right. The episode with Claudine Gay has them running scared. They're battening down the hatches and trying to ride out the storm, and they don't want to attract national media attention with anything like what happened in 1969, when antiwar demonstrators occupied University Hall and were violently ousted by state police.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of Harvard that isn't fenced off like the Yard. There's the Law School quadrangle and the Radcliffe quadrangle, just to name two other Harvard spaces of comparable size.

I think this makes sense given the number of outside agitators who are using this opportunity to try to stir the pot and further their own agenda. College campuses are a place for students to share ideas and express themselves. They should not have to deal with outside groups interfering with them.

Outside the Harvard Admin building in the Square was a popular spot for Vietnam War protests and of course the Cambridge Common hosted protests about everything from the British Occupation in the 1700's to whatever the last cause célebre protests was about.