As a member of Harvard College’s class of 2024, Shruthi Kumar went off script during her senior English address at Harvard’s commencement, expressing indignation at Harvard’s response to the Gaza solidarity encampment in Harvard Yard and acknowledging the 13 Harvard College seniors barred from receiving degrees due to their involvement in the encampment. Kumar sat down with The HPR to discuss her experiences with doxxing in the aftermath of October 7, her decision to go off script, and how her address’s message of “not knowing” speaks to broader messages around solidarity and human rights.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Harvard Political Review: In your senior English address, your original script already had mentions of the war in Gaza and the tensions it has caused on campus. At commencement, however, you went off script to recognize the 13 seniors denied their degrees and to express your disappointment for “the intolerance for freedom of speech and the right to civil disobedience on campus.” Could you walk us through your decision to include that unscripted segment in your address? How did you feel delivering that portion at commencement?
Shruthi Kumar: So the decision to kind of go off script, quote, unquote, was built up over time; it was building up in the weeks leading up to commencement. There were students [going through] an emotional roller coaster of whether or not they were going to get their degrees. They were talking to their tutors, and they were talking to people. The FAS had voted that Monday, so things seemed like they were good, and then they were bad, and then they were good. So it was a wild ride leading up to commencement, which culminated in the decision made by the Harvard Corporation the day before commencement.
And so, earlier that week, I had written in my notes app, if the Corporation decides this, I might say this, or if they decide not in favor, I might say this. So I kind of had plans, to say something that day depending on how things would go. Everything was just changing on a day-to-day basis, and so I was waiting to make my final decision based on how things were going. We also did have the chance to name students at Class Day, and I did that along with another student who’s one of the Marshals. And then during the commencement speech, obviously my original script already talked about Gaza, the war, and what’s going on, especially with tensions on campus, like you mentioned.
But, the decision to mention the 13 students was really because a lot of the students were exercising their right to protest on campus, and that’s not something that I felt was just for Harvard to punish them over. Civil disobedience and peaceful protest is something that is a right that students should maintain in college and have maintained on college campuses for a long time. I also have friends in other colleges across the U.S. who were allowed to protest; their colleges did not shut them down. And so it was just really disheartening to see Harvard take such drastic measures against my peers. So, on Wednesday, which was the day before commencement, we named students at the Class Day exercises, and then that evening or afternoon was when the Corporation released their decision.
Following that, I had many calls and conversations with students whose degrees were being barred. We were at the family reception, just talking about what was going on, and it was weighing pretty heavily on people’s hearts. It was also something heavy on my mind and my heart, and so that night around 11:30, I pieced all my thoughts and reflections together on a note card. And then I decided that since it was the night before, I didn’t want to commit to memorizing it, so I had it on the note card. I also wanted to stylistically differentiate that moment from the rest of the speech, because I wanted to maintain my message, which is the power of “not knowing,” and weave it in a way that created a moment for itself but was also a part of this larger speech that I was giving. So that’s a little context as to how it all happened.
HPR: With deciding to include that segment in your address, were you at all scared of any backlash that you would possibly face after commencement?
SK: There’s always a risk to creating something in a big moment like that. I think for me, I wasn’t. While I was giving the speech and in the days leading up to it, I wasn’t so much concerned about what might happen afterward. Sure, if there were consequences, we would deal with that when it came, but what I was saying wasn’t necessarily false. It wasn’t necessarily against the university in any way. I was expressing my feelings as a student, and I have every right to do that, just as every other student has the right to express how they feel in a civil and polite manner. So I think the way that I phrased things, and the language I used was all intentional. It was crafted such that I spoke more based on fact and truth than on highly emotional statements.
I haven’t faced any backlash so far from the university, and I was exercising my right to free speech just the same way that all the other students were exercising their rights to free speech on campus. And so it’s not something that should ever be punishable. And there were slight worries. I was worried my mic might be cut; I was worried stuff like that might happen. And if it did, I would deal with it in the situation in which it arose. But, at that moment, it just felt like the elephant in the room, and no one had talked about it yet at commencement, so it was something I felt responsible for talking about.
HPR: After the Hamas-led attack on October 7, tensions arose when the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) authored a statement — which was co-signed by 33 Harvard student organizations — that held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Following the statement release, PSC and the co-signing organizations were faced with backlash, including the doxxing of student leaders. As someone who faced doxxing, could you describe your reaction, as well as your thoughts on the general environment on campus during that period of time?
SK: So I was President of the South Asian Association the previous year, so not during the year that the statement was signed. But I think student leaders had signed the statement, and so therefore, all members of certain organizations, were conflated under the signing of the statement, which was a decision taken by a few student leaders rather than by the entire body of people signing petitions. This is a frustration that I think a lot of student organizations experienced was some people made decisions to sign statements, and others that were implicated in that process were doxxed. And so there’s a lot of complex relations with student organizations on campus related to the doxxing.
I think there’s more nuance, and my decision to sign the statement or not would have been different from maybe the decisions of the groups that I was a part of. My view is that things are much more nuanced and sometimes on campus, it can be hard to express those nuanced views when there seems like there’s only one way to do it. And so I guess the doxxing for me was just students that were expressing support for Palestine or support for liberation of any kind — that was conflated with supporting Hamas or supporting terrorism. And that conflation creates harm, so that’s what happened, I would say, for a lot of students.
So there’s nuance there: You can support liberation, you can support Palestinians, you can also denounce terrorism, and you can denounce Hamas. So there wasn’t room for nuance in that situation on campus, which made it difficult to have productive conversations. We saw extreme polarization in a way that was also unproductive, and so, I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of complex happenings on campus, especially with student organizations, how they’re governed, and how those decisions are made. At the end of the day, doxxing is a painful experience and a really scary experience. I was scared to leave Mather House for several days because of the [doxxing] truck that was in the Yard because my name was on a list of people who supposedly supported Hamas, which was not true. I was worried about my career.
That largely [targeted] brown students on campus. There were hijabi students that were on the truck. It was very targeted, in the way that this doxxing was happening, and I didn’t feel very protected by Harvard. I didn’t feel like there was a ton of support. And also, for my peers who were not affected by this, they didn’t seem to know what was going on either. And so it seemed like it was just happening to a select group of people, and therefore no one else was concerned. That was the feeling on campus, and there’s complexity in all of this. I feel like we haven’t dove into the complexity yet, and I want to see more nuance in how we talk about these things. There wasn’t room for that then, and there’s not much room now either.
HPR: How do you think Harvard could have better supported the students and reacted toward the doxxing when it happened? And how can it build up that nuance and build up those conversations and discussions around the Israel-Palestine conflict?
SK: I can speak to the protests and what I think Harvard could have done as a university. As an educational institution, it is their responsibility to teach what civil disobedience and peaceful protest look like. To communicate and be transparent with students, and have those conversations, and express this type of protest is acceptable: This is what your protest can look like, this is what we can allow, and this is what we can’t allow. Those kinds of educational measures would have been helpful during this whole process, and I think there was a lot of miscommunication as to what consequences students might face.
You know, if students clearly knew what type of protest and what the lines were on campus, students may have made different decisions. Especially there were students where their degrees were barred, and they were only at the protest for one day. They didn’t set up the encampment, they weren’t heavily involved, they were there just peacefully protesting for one day. And because they were at the wrong place, wrong time, they got caught by the video or the ID checking or whatever processes they were using, which was somewhat arbitrary, from what I’ve heard at least. So there’s a lot there. I think, education-wise, Harvard can teach what civil disobedience and peaceful protesting looks like, and that’s something that I think would have been very useful this semester.
With the doxxing, I would have liked to feel protected a little bit more; I was looking for a letter or a statement that I could provide companies or jobs or graduate programs I was applying to to make it clear that I don’t support Hamas and that I don’t support terrorism. That’s something that co-opted and was all over kind of media and lists. And that was scary to have your name attached to something you don’t believe, and when that happens, I — alongside other students — we’re looking for some kind of protection. We’re looking for statements from the university that would protect us from the harm we were facing in our careers and in our futures, and we never kind of received that. And so that’s something that I wish was taken care of at the time.
HPR: Going back to your speech — it has gotten quite a bit of media coverage. What are your thoughts on the national attention that your address has received? Do you think that the media coverage of your speech, as well as the media coverage of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus over the past year, which some have said has more play in the news than the conflict itself, is beneficial to the upholding of free speech at Harvard?
SK: I think my speech was just one moment in a large[r moment]. There were so many more students involved in the protests and in the broader movement at the national level. There were encampments across the country. My speech was something I had written for months. I’d been working on it for months, and I’d been writing and rewriting it several times over. I think they’re [the address and the movement are] two separate things. My speech talked to the moment that we were in, but it wasn’t necessarily the moment itself. And I think that’s the distinction that people need to understand, is my speech can also be applied to any other human rights issue going on in the world. I talk a lot about solidarity and empathy, and I talk about the power of ”not knowing,” and these are all concepts. Right now, we’re talking about Israel and Palestine, but you can apply my speech to really any kind of humanitarian issue or human rights issue that’s ongoing, because these are all universal concepts of empathy and solidarity and the power of “not knowing.”
And so as much as the speech was a moment in and of itself, it is not the movement entirely, because there were all these encampments across the country, and so many more students that have spent so much more time than I have working on pro-Palestine efforts on campus. It’s getting a lot of attention right now, because it was off script and it was such a big moment, it was Harvard, and it was all of these things. And if that contributes to this broader movement that encourages the U.S. to take better actions when it comes to reducing the war, reducing death, and reducing all of this stuff that’s going on, then I’m happy with that.
But at the same time, the hyper focus on the speech alone is not what my goal was from giving it. It was to communicate this idea, the power of “not knowing” and to communicate this idea of solidarity, this kind of humanity, and this oneness that we share. I ask questions about “can we see the pain in people who we disagree with?” And that’s something that I want people to think about, not just with this issue, but in how we approach a lot of issues moving forward. Our country is really good at being very polarized with issues, and it’s not very productive in my opinion.
And I didn’t know it would blow up like this. I didn’t intend for it to have the effect that it did, but I am glad that it did because it’s reached so many people. I’ve heard from people and faculty have emailed me saying “thank you for speaking up.” People have said, “I walked out after you gave the speech. I wasn’t planning on it before, but I did after you spoke.” And so stuff like that was encouraging in that my speech wasn’t directly connected to the walkout. It wasn’t directly connected to any particular student, group, or movement on campus, but I spoke to the moment, and it wasn’t intentional to be the moment. So we need to keep the focus on the issue at hand, which is what’s going on in Israel and Palestine right now.
HPR: During commencement, hundreds of students and faculty walked out of the ceremony to protest the administration’s decision to withhold degrees from the 13 seniors. Could you describe your experience and the general atmosphere at the ceremony during the walkout?
SK: I don’t know how many people knew about the walkout – I personally didn’t know when it was happening or anything like that. So I think people started walking out during the graduate degree deferrals — that was kind of the first [portion] and there was a large chunk of people that walked out during that part. I myself walked out along with the other undergraduate orator during the undergraduate degree deferrals, because that was more of the moment that I felt was necessary to walk out, especially when people were celebrating undergraduate degrees during a time when 13 members of our class weren’t getting degrees. That was not something that I sat well with, and so that was the moment I decided to walk out. I think there was a lot of parents that walked out too with their students.
It was chaotic, it was wild, and it was definitely a moment to remember. For Maria’s speech, we watched it on live-stream later, and it was awesome. I wish we were all there to hear it live. I did watch it later, but I think it was necessary in the moment that was happening. And those that felt like they wanted to stay, stayed — and that was good too. But I personally just felt like celebrating that moment didn’t feel right, so I decided to walk out during the undergraduate conferral degree.
HPR: With the 13 seniors barred from graduating and the other students under suspension, why do you believe the administration enacted these sanctions even though according to precedent, past student movements have faced comparatively minor discipline?
SK: From my perspective, Harvard as an educational institution has a first priority to its students and protecting its students. The harshness of the decision of taking away the undergraduate degrees was what I felt to be unjust. Graduate students were also involved in protests and all graduate students were allowed to graduate. And so the distinction was that it wasn’t consistent university-wide. So graduate students were allowed to graduate, undergraduate students weren’t. So it just felt like there wasn’t a united front in the way that Harvard was making its decisions.
FAS had also voted. A majority were in support of the students and against the unprecedented sanctions, and so all of it felt like it was the Administrative Board making these decisions that were not in line with precedent, nor in line with what students and what faculty believed, nor in line with the graduate schools. So it wasn’t really aligned with anyone else, for that matter, and that was also a glaring issue to me.
HPR: Your senior English address focused on the power of “not knowing” and you encouraged your fellow peers to “lean into conversation without assuming we have all the answers,” as “solidarity is not dependent on what we know, because ‘not knowing’ creates space for empathy, humility, and a willingness to learn.” For some, they may be hesitant to get involved or even speak about the war in Gaza due to “not knowing” enough about the conflict. To those who use a lack of knowledge as a reason for a lack of action, how might you encourage them to act?
SK: The first thing I would say is the world is chaotic, there’s a lot going on, and there’s a lot of violence, and sometimes it can be desensitizing and it can be overwhelming. And I think amongst all of that, taking a moment to realize that there’s privilege in not knowing. There’s privilege in excluding yourself from the conversation, and that is also a decision that someone takes. So I encourage people to stay educated, to read, and to follow along with what’s going on. If you’re not, there’s multiple ways to be an active and participating member of your community. It doesn’t have to be protests and it doesn’t have to be posting on social media; it can be educating yourself and it can be having conversations with other people. But turning a blind eye is something that I don’t believe anyone should do and is not acceptable. I think we have to know what’s going on, and then we can decide to what degree we want to be involved, and that’s valid. But knowing, knowing how much you know, how much you don’t know, and being aware of that is the first step.
So my speech had many different definitions of not knowing: At the beginning, I start out with more basic definitions of not knowing. As the first, person in my family to go to college, I didn’t know how that process works. And that’s a very simple way of not knowing. Then there’s more complex ways of not knowing, such as not knowing somebody’s experience of life or death, and not knowing someone’s walk of life. And so there’s all these definitions of not knowing. And the one that we find ourselves in today, calls on us to learn about how other people in the world are, what they’re facing right now, what we’re facing right now, and how different those experiences are. And it’s our responsibility to, at the very least, learn and educate ourselves about it.
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