Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow was recently awarded the Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize at Brandeis University. According to Brandeis’s website, the award “recognizes an individual who has made outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations.”
As reported by The Harvard Crimson on February 26, about twenty individuals—including five HLS students—staged a protest at Dean Minow’s award ceremony. They reportedly interrupted her acceptance speech, interjecting that her receipt of the Gittler Prize was “hypocrisy” and “a travesty.”
I am disappointed in the five HLS students who participated in this protest. Dean Minow did not deserve to be subjected to such embarrassment on an occasion meant to celebrate her work.
The five protesters’ actions were particularly saddening, as well as confusing, in light of Dean Minow’s extensive contributions to causes of racial and social justice. In addition to her scholarship, which was the reason for which she received the Gittler Prize, she has made numerous other contributions that the five protesters likely support. For example, Dean Minow recently filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting race-based affirmative action in university admissions. As vice chair of the Legal Services Corporation, she champions increased funding for civil legal aid across the country. She commissioned a body here at HLS, composed of faculty, students, and staff, to consider whether the school should change its official seal, which is linked to slavery. And the list goes on.
Protest can be a valuable part of democratic society, but protesters should not eschew basic principles of civility and respect, as these students did. In their well-intentioned zeal to bring attention to social justice issues, the five protesters lost sight (temporarily, I hope) of values that constitute the bedrock of constructive discourse.