In this case study we have examined the tactics and impact of Reclaim Harvard Law, a student movement striving to create institutional change around issues of racial justice and inequality at Harvard Law School. In their own words, Reclaim HLS is a “a movement of hundreds students and staff at Harvard Law School, from various student organizations, affinity groups, and backgrounds, pushing for institutional change at Harvard Law School. This movement fits into a national call for racial equality in education, which has resulted in positive changes at a number of colleges and universities.” Reclaim Harvard Law was officially formed a year ago, on December 1, 2015.
We chose this case for a number of reasons. First, it was relevant to our campus and current national issues of racial injustice. Since the Black Lives Matter movement first erupted over social media, there has been an increased awareness of the issues still affecting the black community. It seemed that every other week we would hear something about police brutality and unjust treatment. In a way, Reclaim Harvard Law was born out out this movement, by creating a space for dialogue and action. Second, this case was accessible--a movement directly on and affecting our campus. We felt a personal connection, not only as fellow Harvard students, but also as young adults witnessing or experiencing injustice. We wanted to understand how students, only a few years older than us, could create such a tremendous impact on their administration. What drove them to action, what kept them going.
Each of us brought along individual interests into the case study, ranging from personal stories to general curiosity. For me (Gaby), this was an opportunity to better understand the experiences of black Americans. I grew up in a mostly Latino community, yet did not have much insight into the lives of other students of color. For Michaela, the case study was rooted in prior interest and participation in the Black Lives Matter movement. Over the summer, she had the opportunity to engage with youth activists while in Chicago. For Kailash, it was curiosity and a drive to learn how students were able to create concrete change.
As we sought to explore youth activism in racial justice movements, we focused on answering three particular questions: (1) what strategies were instrumental to Reclaim HLS’ success, (2) what challenges and opposition did Reclaim HLS face, and (3) how does the “college campus” affect youth movements. These questions would be answered in the context of the YPP framework.
In order to research this case study, we began by learning as much as we could about the movement from on-campus, local, and national media coverage. From there, we attempted to contact students involved with the movement. Professor Allen put us in touch with a member of Reclaim who then connected us with another student whom we will refer to here as Mark. We were able to interview Mark in mid-November, and he provided us with many details of his personal experience with the movement. While we made plans to interview another student as well, she was ultimately unable to meet with us - she had a baby! This case study should therefore not be viewed as an exhaustive portrait of the movement but rather an introduction to its story and a glimpse into the participation of one student.
The Story of the Movement
On November 19, 2015, the portraits of black faculty members at Harvard Law School were vandalized with pieces of black tape. This incident, highly disturbing to many members of the Law School community, would serve as the catalyst for the creation of Reclaim Harvard Law, though it was by no means the beginning of activism on campus. For example, in 2014, many affinity groups and their allies had pushed for discussions about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement on campus. Even more recently, in October 2015, a group of students, including international students from South Africa, had created the movement Royall Must Fall (RMF) with the aim of “[decolonizing] Harvard Law School, with one first step as removing the Royall family crest from the Law School’s shield.” In fact, the black tape incident was perhaps partially in response to the work of RMF. RMF had used black tape to cover the law school’s seal in many prominent locations on campus, and it was this tape that is thought to have been taken and used to vandalize the faculty member portraits.
The night that the black tape incident occurred, students held emergency meetings to begin discussing their response. As Mark explained to us, many 3Ls (third year students) acted as de facto leaders of these meetings; many of them had previous experience with activism on campus and it made sense for first year students like Mark to follow their lead. However, Mark also emphasized that these meetings were not top-down in structure; all students were encouraged to participate and share their thoughts. These initial meetings also served a variety of purposes: they were a place for students to vent and discuss their emotions, as well as a place to begin discussing ideas for strategic response. According to the YPP framework, these meetings were a way for students to explore the question: Where do we start? Students hoped to implement the most effective techniques possible to create real change: Mark spoke of their emphasis on ensuring a “legitimate and substantive” from the university.
In addition to discussing strategy, some students also discussed the personal reasons for why they were upset about the black tape incident and why they hoped for institutional change on campus. In other words, they shared their responses to the question: Why does it matter to me? Due to the limits of our case study as previously discussed, we could not hear the personal perspectives of multiple students. However, we did talk with Mark about the reasons that he became involved. One way Mark has experienced institutional racism on campus is through a frequent sense of being on the fringe or marginalized. For example, in classroom settings where he is one of only a few students of color, he often feels a perception of having to speak on behalf of his race. The socratic method, used extensively at the law school, exacerbates this pressure because if a marginalized individual is cold-called and fails to answer the question correctly, they can feel that they are failing their race or group. One of the aims of this method is to “break students down” so that the law school can then “build them back up,” and in Mark’s view, it is one example of a practice that is continued at law schools simply because that is the way things have always been done. According to Mark, the importance placed on precedence in the legal world can carry over to law schools and make it extremely difficult to change campus culture and work for social justice. Another institutional issue that Mark saw at the law school was a failure to discuss issues beyond how they pertain to powerful groups in society. Classes often address cases that include issues still relevant today, for example, the court’s justification for taking away land from Native Americans. However, students are not given the opportunity to discuss the implications of these issues in today’s world or how they may affect marginalized groups.
In our discussion with Mark, he talked about institutional issues not only as they pertained to students of minority racial groups, but also to other marginalized groups such as queer students and women. We did not ask him directly about whether there were any early efforts to purposefully reach out to members of other such groups as allies, but it seems that discussions of institutional change at the university could have perhaps been used to help the group think about the YPP question: How do I make it about more than myself?
Following the initial student meetings immediately after the black tape incident, law school administrators also began to host community meetings to discuss the issue. At the first such meeting, on November 30, 2015, many students were left frustrated because they felt that the administration had silenced their voices. Dean Minow spoke at the meeting for 30 minutes and was followed by other members of the administration. Students were left with only a few minutes to share their thoughts before the meeting was ended. At the close of the conversation, one student said he wished students had been allowed more time to speak, to which Dean Minow replied, “Does anyone have an actual comment?”
Because students had lacked any control over the first community meeting, they began to get organized to ensure that their voices would be heard at subsequent meetings. Affinity group leaders met and invited interested students to join them, and students also formed working groups to begin drafting their demands. In preparation for a community meeting on December 4, students planned out every detail of how they would be heard. According to Mark they planned exactly how many microphones there would be and where, and they decided who would be in charge of mic turnovers and transitions. In our view, this planning appears to be a key example of how Reclaim was able to begin answering the question: How do we get from voice to change? Ensuring that they would have adequate time to speak at the meeting was a way for students to share their voices; a prerequisite for change. At the meeting on December 4, students presented their demands to Dean Minow and requested a response by 9am on Monday, December 7. These demands were their next step in attempting to move from voice to change.
Actionable Demands and Moving Forwards
According to Mark, students sought to present actionable demands. Some of these demands, all of which are found on their website, included: addressing history of slavery by removing the Royall family crest, establishing a Critical Race Program, reforming legal curriculum through student input to ensure integration of marginalized narratives, establishing a Office of Diversity & Inclusion, improving affordability and access to HLS students of color and low socio-economic backgrounds, and recruiting and encouraging Staff of Color. These demands, Mark said, were practical and feasible for the administration. For example, practical measures could very well be taken to establishing an Office of Diversity & Inclusion. While the list of demands was long, students pushed for every single measure to be met. If anything, they wanted the administration to be aware of their organization, goals, and continued spirit in the movement. The demands forced the administration to respond and also addressed the YPP question: how do we get from voice to change?
Students continued to explore this question through activism and online action. Shortly after they visited Dean Minow’s office, with no success, activists congregated in Kumble Plaza to stage a protest. They met again on Tuesday, a day after the protest, for another community discussion. Students from Reclaim Harvard Law and a coalition of affinity groups sat and studied together in Wasserstein Hall, discussing their demands and what future actions to take. On December 8, students launched the Reclaim HLS website, Facebook, and Twitter. A photo campaign with the hashtag #ReclaimHLS soon followed - where activists and allies took photos holding a white board, with the phrase “I Reclaim HLS because.” Though this, students engaged with: How can we find allies? After winter break, they staged a quite successful occupation of Belinda Hall, which is formally known as Wasserstein Lounge but was renamed after one of Isaac Royall’s slaves. Protesters stayed day and night, creating spaces for reading, fireside chats, and contextual learning. They held regular speaker events and group discussions that truly transformed the student lounge. According to Mark, the primary goal of this action was creating a safe space for students who had not felt that on campus, in addition to pushing administration.
Following the occupation and ongoing demonstrations, Reclaim HLS received a lot criticism, the most pressing coming from a fellow student, William Barlowe. Barlowe was an outspoken opponent to the movement, putting up posters that claimed Reclaim was similar to Trump in that both “supported the suppression of dissent.” After some of these posters were taken down, Barlow argued that Reclaim HLS was violating the right to free speech. Growing opposition supposedly “turned off” some students from joining who questioned the group’s tactics and demands. During this time, Reclaim students also found recording devices in their meeting rooms. It was the group’s first experience answering the question: How do you handle the downside of the crowds? Mark told us that the group simply had to keep moving forward. They addressed the opposition and continued to emphasize inter-group action and protests towards the administration. The tense climate inspired student activists to regroup for a reflection, rather than a strategic meeting. At this meeting, students engaged in conversations around the question, “why are you here?” - why does it matter to me? It was a tense evening, where members brought up painful memories and encouraged each other to continue fighting. The stories, Mark said, was what kept them going and willing to take risks.
Success, But More Battles
By February, the efforts of the Reclaim HLS organizers and participants seemed to be paying off. Dean of Students Marcia Sells released a statement detailing plans to hire a Director for Community Engagement and Equity and increase diversity training at first-year orientation programs. Sells also promised that Harvard would release a campus-wide climate survey, launch a mentoring program, and improve sexual assault prevention training. In March, one of Reclaim HLS’ most important demands was met; the Harvard Corporation had approved the Law School Committee’s decision to remove the seal. Reclaim HLS had, in turn, gone from voice to change; they were a symbol of efficacy.
With significant progress made towards Reclaim HLS’ initial goal of reducing minority marginalization on campus, the movement took towards realizing a more idealistic goal: ending tuition at Harvard Law School. While the movements’ organizers realized that ending tuition completely was rather lofty, they sought to raise awareness about the economic disparities that students of color and low-income students often confront. The “Fees Must Fall” campaign continues to this day. Having developed credibility first by achieving a set of goals, Reclaim HLS now uses its voice to raise awareness.
Like many movements centered around college campuses, Reclaim had to contend with waning student interest and the graduation of the movement’s organizers. Considering that five YPP Action Framework pertain to this issue (why does it matter to me, how much should I share, how do I make it about more than myself, how can we make it easy and engaging, and how can we find allies), it’s no wonder that it’s a hard one to solve. To account for the fact that students had varying levels of interest in Reclaim HLS and time to commit to the organization, Reclaim organizers created events with different levels of investment. Every few weeks, Reclaim HLS would hold low-time commitment workshops that served as political education. One workshop, for example, dealt with queer theory. For those interested in more extensive involvement with Reclaim, Reclaim helped organize support for the Harvard University Dining Hall Workers strike. Because of Reclaim HLS’ past grassroots work, the organization was able to easily mobilize its members in support of the strike. Belinda Hall, the center of Reclaim HLS’ work during the Royall Must Fall campaign, became an activist space. Reclaim did not penalize those who had been involved with the movement but then dropped off for re-joining, and doing so allowed the organization to sustain itself and grow this year.
Looking forward, Reclaim will attempt to build sustained momentum. While much of its activism to date has been in reaction to contemporary events or other ongoing movements, Reclaim will work toward building a mission and framework that allows the organization to keep up its work during less reactionary times. To continue making progress, the organization is also looking to institutionalize their work. Doing so will allow future movements to reference Reclaim’s work when looking to make change of their own.
Major Lessons and Takeaways of our Case Study
In our discussion with Mark, we found an interesting definition of political, which helped us in answering some of the underlying questions of this course: What is political and does raising voices count as civic and political action? Mark defined “politics” as discourse and exchange of power. He acknowledged that some students in Reclaim HLS would perhaps not agree with him. For him, politics and social are intertwined, because in any given situation power relations are always in operation. An institution like Harvard inherently resembles social inequalities--you can’t ignore the social underpinnings. Mark then spoke about the self or individual in the political realm. “Activist,” he said, is a term that in and of itself political. His identity as a queer black man is in and of itself political, placing him in a very different social and political world than others. Essentially, identity is political because in many cases it is related to power structures tied to institutions.
The three major themes of the course that we saw as relevant to our case study were sacrifice, efficacy, and self-protection. In this case, student sacrifice was necessary in order for any part of the movement to be effective. From the very beginning, students needed to sacrifice their time and effort to plan and attend meetings and draft demands. As the movement progressed, they sacrificed even more time: many of them slept and lived in Belinda Hall for most of the spring semester. Not only did this commitment take away from the time they were able to spend pursuing their academic work, but it also meant that they had to bear the risk of damaging their future career prospects or relationship with the school. I (Michaela) have a family friend who was involved with the movement, and his family jokingly tells the story of how they double checked his diploma last year just to make sure that the university had really let him graduate. Though they were kidding, this anecdote reflects a small fraction of the risks taken by students for the sake of the efficacy of Reclaim HLS.
Because of all the risks involved, this case required that students be especially aware of their self-protection. Even though much of this movement was not operating in the digital space, it still required students to be conscious of how much they shared at any given moment. As students were reminded last spring with the discovery of recording devices in Belinda Hall, their privacy was often at risk as a result of taking part in the movement. When we interviewed Mark, he asked that we not record the conversation. While that is one example of individual self-protection, most of the self-protection that we learned about in this case was at the group level. With more time and interviews it would be interesting to examine how self-protection may have looked different for different students, especially students with different intersectional identities.
Efficacy, the third of the major themes we identified for our case study, involves lessons applicable for future movements. Any future movement, we realized, should have answers to three questions: (1) Why, (2) How do we get from voice to change, and (3) How do we respond to the opposition? The “why” answer can’t be a long mission statement or a simple restatement of values - it has to speak to someone’s gut of “why” they want to participate. Take, for example, the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While Clinton appealed to people’s rational side and asked them to side with her for her experience and temperament, Trump campaigned on a motto: “Make America Great Again” - vague but appealing to people’s hearts. How do we get from voice to change ultimately proves the lasting legacy of a movement. To do this, mission organizers need to be willing to make sacrifices, particularly with time, and carry out detailed planning. Reclaim HLS organizers often sacrificed study time for the movement and worked diligently to ensure that the administration could not avoid them. In one instance, to ensure that the questions of Reclaim were addressed at a forum, Reclaim organizers stationed members at every microphone. This way, even if the administrators stopped calling questions at one microphone due to the questions being related to Reclaim movement, there would be other students to continue the line of questioning. Finally, most movements can expect to face opposition and should have a response to the opposition’s argument. Reclaim HLS struggled slightly in this area, and we have attempted to answer how they could have reacted better to the opposition in “Concluding Thoughts and Questions.”
Concluding Thoughts & Questions
How could Reclaim have responded to its opposition in a better manner? As we’ve taken time to reflect on this project as a whole, one question that still lingers for us is what the most effective response to opposition would have been for Reclaim HLS. Is there anything that they could or should have done differently in order to maximize Reclaim’s allies and resources on campus? When approaching this question, we are cognizant of the fact that none of us were involved in the movement and we cannot know all of the challenges that accompanied having to respond quickly and under pressure to extremely tense situations. We are therefore not trying to criticize Reclaim’s response but rather trying to create dialogue about lessons that may be useful to future movements. Because each of us have different views, we will each give brief thoughts on Reclaim’s response to opposition.
Michaela: In my view, the reason that Reclaim’s response to opposition was so crucial to their movement is because it was so interwoven with their ability to find and maintain allies. As was noted in opinion pieces last spring, some students who were otherwise in agreement with the movement’s goals became skeptical of their tactics following their interactions with Barlowe. As Ethan Zuckerman states in From Voice to Influence, “The decision to protest is always a calculus. Will my statement make a difference? What risks am I taking?” In this case, part of the “calculation” of students as to whether or not they should get involved with Reclaim also seems to have involved whether or not they agreed with the movement’s tactics. Reclaim’s actions raised questions about free speech for many students that organizers may or may not have anticipated before acting - I would be interested to learn more about whether or not they expected so much backlash. It seems to me that part of the movement’s initial response to Barlowe was reactionary (such as removing his posters) rather than planned in advance. Perhaps if they had made a plan for how to respond to dissent earlier in the movement, before they received targeted opposition, they would have been better equipped to respond with intentionality. In such circumstances, maybe they would have arrived at the same outcome and still decided to remove opposing posters, but by doing so in advance they might have been able to get ahead of the backlash and clearly state the reasoning behind their response before fellow students began criticizing it. In other words, perhaps they could have partially avoided always having to be in a defensive position.
Kailash: Reclaim’s opposition, in many ways, was similar to the opposition we saw to racial justice movements around the nation; the argument went that these racial justice movements infringed on others’ personal spaces, violated free speech, and unncessarily made minorities “victims” - the marginalization of minorities was not as prevalent as to the extent which movement organizers claimed. William Barlowe, the leader of opposition to Reclaim HLS, particular centered his case against the movement around free speech. The movement, he argued, tried to tamp down on speech without hearing the opposition - as HLS student Marlen Thaten made the case, anyone “who [even dared] disagree with you [was] labeled a racist or extremist.” Reclaim should have hosted forums not just with administrators but also with the opposition to tamp down negative claims about their movement. Doing so would have sponsored a spirit of unity and maybe reduced the division on campus. Because Reclaim simply said Barlowe and his counterparts were wrong without engaging them, they created more polarization on campus. Certainly, it can hurt to talk about issues you feel should be easily understood or are very personal to you. But Reclaim organizers had an obligation to explain their movement to the entire student body - not just their supporters, but also their opposers. As Professor Danielle Allen and I discussed in class, these organizers should have moved to separate their personal experiences from the issue; doing so would have allowed them to express their objectives clearly without getting caught up in the emotions that come along with describing one’s personal experiences with marginalization.
Gaby: Following William Barlowe’s criticism of the Reclaim HLS it seemed that organizers retreated back into their group for support and to move forward. I certainly do not intend to criticize this aspect of reflecting and support that took place in the form of very difficult community conversations. However, I did find the idea of “moving forward” from opposition to be quite interesting. Beyond matters of free speech, some students voiced concerns about the tactics and attitudes of organizers--feeling as if Reclaim HLS was opposed to even conversation with “the other side.” Perhaps discussions and meetings with students beyond the Reclaim network would have helped. This may have occurred - but we did not get a chance to follow up with Mark or students from the movement. Like Michaela, I wondered if Reclaim HLS expected the opposition, and if so, did they have an organized strategy about how to best respond. For example, spending time in the very early meetings to discuss potential backlash and how the organization would respond in unison. There also seems to be an issue of organizers having different opinion on the next step. While some may have supported removing Barlowe’s posters, it is possible that other students did voice their concerns. Ultimately, I believe it is a matter of everyone agreeing on the mission and tactics of the organization. Creating the list of demands was an example of this, agreeing on the responses would be a wise addition.
Another remaining question that we have is whether self-protection looked different for different students who were part of the Reclaim movement. How did other aspects of students’ identities affect the pressure they felt to limit the publicity of their involvement with the movement? Because we only interviewed one participant it was difficult to get a sense of varying perspectives on self-protection, but going forward we would be very curious to learn more about how students with different intersectional identities dealt with the movement’s risks. Did women deal with self-protection differently than men? Did individuals’ LGBTQ identities affect their self-protection strategies? What self-protection was required for white allies? Also, did risks inhibit any groups of students from getting involved with the movement for fear that they wouldn’t be able to adequately protect themselves? How did students help protect one another? Hearing the personal experiences of more students involved with the movement would be helpful to answering these questions.
Furthermore, how did the Harvard title change the circumstances? We can imagine that if this had occurred at a smaller, unrecognized college, the response from administration would have been different. Students here gained ground with local and national news, largely in part of being at Harvard. Most people in the Harvard network were aware of Reclaim HLS, even more so when organizers partook in other movements or protests, like the HUDS strike. There is a sense of urgency in the title that is both beneficial and impactful. Harvard claims to be a world-renewed institution, which it certainly is. In doing so, there is a spoken (and unspoken) standard of legitimacy and prestige that administrators want to protect. The Reclaim HLS movement threatened to change that. So, responding to students with caution and ease was ultimately the wisest decision. In another sense, students were very much fighting for equality at Harvard, with a mindset that this also occurs at other institutions. Thus, the vision itself is broadly applicable. Connecting with other schools, however, is a more difficult task--as it requires further organization and sacrifice, beyond the doors of Harvard. This would be an interesting topic to study in the future of Reclaim HLS.
Finally, we considered whether there could be similarities between Reclaim HLS and the Harry Potter Alliance and the DREAMers, two movements we frequently discussed in class. While the Harry Potter alliance mobilizes a common interest to achieve good, it stands in contrast to Reclaim HLS, which deals with personal experience and an attempt to better that experience. Reclaim HLS is closer to DREAMers, in which the children of illegal immigrants fought for pathways to citizenship. These DREAMers were fighting for a cause they knew would better their lives, much like many members of Reclaim HLS. The DREAMers, though, were fighting for basic rights; racial minorities at Harvard already had the same rights as other students. Reclaim HLS, however, felt that certain practices at Harvard hurt minorities; these practices weren’t put in place to hurt minorities, yet they placed an undue burden on them. That difference, between fighting for equal rights under the law and fighting to change “colorblind” practices, makes a difference in the movement’s mission and opposition. It would be interesting for future studies to consider whether movement’s attempt to change “colorblind” practices have tougher times than movements fighting for basic rights under the law. It would also be interesting to see whether the ways in which DREAMers went national could help Reclaim HLS expand its mission outside of Harvard.
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[13] Ethan Zuckerman, "Cute Cats to the Rescue?," in From Voice to Influence, ed. Danielle Allen and Jennifer S. Light (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 143.