Over 100 Students Walk Out of Comaroff Class

BY DARLEY A.C. BOIT RAHEM D. HAMID AND ELIAS J. SCHISGALL CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

More than 100 students walked out of embattled Harvard professor John L. Comaroff’s class Tuesday afternoon, protesting his continued presence on campus after he was placed on leave last year for violating the University’s sexual harassment and professional conduct policies.

Students flooded Comaroff’s classroom in Northwest Building classroom B108 — overflowing into the hallway — to protest the first lecture of his class African and African-American Studies 172X: “Colonialism and its Postcolonial/Decolonial

Afterlives: Critical Readings.”

As Comaroff began to speak, students rose from their seats and filed out of the classroom, chanting, “Justice for survivors,” and “No more Comaroff, no more complicity.”

As the walkout begin, Comaroff, a professor of African and African American Studies and Anthropology, broke into a smile and nodded at the protesters. As the last students left the classroom, one told the professor, “Smile in hell, asshole.”

The walkout was organized by members of Our Harvard Can Do Better and the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers’ Feminist Working Group. Students associated with Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard and the Student Labor Action Movement also attended the protest. Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean and University president-elect Claudine Gay placed Comaroff on unpaid administrative leave for the spring 2022 semester after two internal investigations found that Comaroff violated Harvard’s sexual harassment and professional conduct policies.

SEE PAGE 8 lease the names,” “No justice, no peace,” and “Send those killer cops to jail,” for several minutes.

CPD spokesperson Jeremy C. Warnick wrote in an emailed statement that no one was arrested in connection to the protest. In a Jan. 6 statement, Warnick wrote that it “would not be appropriate” to comment on specific allegations while the shooting remains under investigation by the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office.

Siddiqui did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On the afternoon of Jan. 4, police responded to a report of a man harming himself with a weapon. According to a CPD press release, officers asked the man, Faisal, to drop the weapon, and fired non-lethal sponge rounds when he allegedly advanced toward them. An officer shot and killed Faisal when he continued to approach, the press release said.

Purkar, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said in an interview that the protesters sought the release of the full, unredacted police report and the names of the officers involved in the killing, as well as their removal from the department.

“They’re on paid vacation right now,” Purkar said. “In what other profession can you murder somebody and then go on paid vacation the very next day?”

The chants continued outside the chamber as protesters stormed Siddiqui’s office and pounded on her door, disrupting Siddiqui’s attempt to resume the meeting over Zoom and following through on their chant to shut down “business as usual.”

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