HGSU Picketed My Course. Undergrads Shouldn’t Be a Bargaining Chip
David S. Jones ’93 is the Chair of the Harvard History of Science Department, the A. Bernard Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine, and a Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
As the professor of General Education 1116: “Medical Ethics and History,” I would like to clarify the events that led to the disruption of my class on October 29.
On October 27, the Harvard Graduate Students Union emailed me to warn about a picket planned for October 29: “Based on the information we have, we expect that the picket line will interfere with your class. We are extending this communication in the hopes that you will choose to honor the picket line and cancel or relocate your class.” Despite some misgivings, I asked the Registrar if other spaces were available. None were — Harvard has few spaces that can hold 280 students.
My class had an in-person exam scheduled for October 29. Students had been working hard to prepare, and rescheduling the exam was not a good option. Changing an exam date is disruptive in any well-designed course. Moreover, the strike is open-ended: I had no idea when it might end, and I had no guarantee that any future date would be picket-free. Converting the exam to a take-home is pointless in our age of generative artificial intelligence. As a result, I concluded that it was not appropriate to cancel or reschedule the exam.
I believe that the union knew the Thursday session would be an exam. The planned interference proceeded, nonetheless. There was a picket outside Emerson Hall before the class began, but students were able to access the lecture hall. The exam started as scheduled at 10:30 a.m. The noise quickly escalated and continued, more or less, for 75 minutes.
