Nov 16, 2023
Black Harvard Student Removed From Proctor Role, Evicted Over Protest Altercation
- 9 minutes
Black Harvard proctor removed
over protest altercation.
I'm going to first go to the video and
give you the background.
Here it is.
>> Speaker 2: Exit.
[00:00:15]
Exit.
Exit.
Show him the exit.
Exit.
>> Speaker 2: Exit.
>> Speaker 2: Exit.
>> Speaker 3: Exit behind you.
Turn around.
>> Speaker 2: Exit.
>> Speaker 3: Exit.
>> Speaker 2: Not interested.
>> Speaker 3: Okay, cool.
>> Speaker 2: We'll just stay here.
[00:00:31]
Exit.
Exit.
Exit.
Exit.
Exit.
>> Speaker 1: Don't
grab
[00:00:51]
me.
>> Speaker 3: Don't touch my neck.
>> Speaker 2: Exit.
Exit.
>> Speaker 3: Behind you.
>> Speaker 1: Don't grab me.
>> No ne is grabbing you.
[00:01:09]
>> Speaker 1: Put up
the picture full mass.
I will explain to you what has
occurred in Massachusetts.
Elam Teddy Tamaklo, a Harvard College
proctor, has been indefinitely
relieved of his duties following his
involvement in a confrontation at
[00:01:24]
a pro Palestine protest, according
to a petition that began circulating
Friday evening with a student that has
direct knowledge of the situation.
The petition cited, quote,
student discomfort as the reason for
[00:01:41]
the removal, but
alleged that none of Elam's first year
students expressed having
any actual discomfort.
So what are proctors?
Proctors are basically
Harvard graduate students,
[00:01:58]
instructors of staff that
oversee a group of freshmen.
They are unpaid and
receive compensation in the form
of meal swipes and
housing in a freshman dorm.
[00:02:13]
According to the petition,
the proctor was told to vacate Friday,
background on a confrontation.
It's this, the viral video of the protest
depicts a confrontation between a man
who is identified as an Israeli student
and other outlets and protest organizers.
[00:02:32]
When the student began filming,
demonstrators faces the proctor,
who is,
in a way there to protect students.
The proctor and other protest safety
marshals directed him away and blocked his
camera with their security vest,
traditional Palestinian scarves, etc.
[00:02:52]
The student could be heard saying
don't touch me as he came into
physical contact with the protesters.
So a Harvard president,
Rabbi Zarchi, called for
the removal of the proctor
due to his involvement in
[00:03:08]
the October 18 pro Palestine Diane.
This was at Harvard Business School and
on IG claiming that he had
fielded complaints from students.
So you have one narrative that said no
student said they were uncomfortable,
[00:03:26]
another person saying, well,
I got complaints from the students.
In an email announcement to the affiliates
Wednesday afternoon, Zarchi also shared a
screenshot he identified as the proctor's
IG story, which included the caption.
Quote, the beast of Zionism shall
be slain, Palestine shall live,
[00:03:41]
her children shall return,
from the river to the sea
Palestine will be free.
Needless to say,
students are frightened of him.
Their parents call me regularly to
say how they can't sleep at night as
[00:03:59]
they worry for the safety of their
children, he wrote in the email.
So Harvard President Claudine Gay
announced the launch of an anti
Semitism advisory board or
group at the end of last month.
In a Thursday afternoon email statement,
Gay condemned the pro
[00:04:19]
Palestine phrase from the river
to the sea, which she wrote to
a great many of people imply
the eradication of Jews from Israel and
engender both pain and
fears within the Jewish community.
This statement goes like this.
[00:04:37]
I have heard from many community
members about the incident on
the Harvard Business School
campus on October 18.
They wrote,
Consistent with our standard practice,
once law enforcement's
inquiry is complete,
the university will address the incident
through the student disciplinary procedure
[00:04:53]
to determine if university policies or
codes of conduct have been violated.
If so, take appropriate action.
Action has already been taken.
So let's be clear about this, all right?
There's an intentional
manipulation of narrative.
[00:05:12]
It's happening from politicians,
it's happening from spin masters.
We should all universally
agree that murder,
killing of innocent people,
well, that is wrong.
That is immoral.
That should be universally condemned,
period.
[00:05:32]
Why do we have to keep
making this distinction?
Palestinians, the Palestinian authority,
the government, they're not at war.
Palestinian citizens are not
at war with Israel, Hamas is.
[00:05:48]
And if you believe the narrative
that Netanyahu has no choice but
to kill Palestinians in
order to find Hamas,
obviously you know if Hamas
was hiding in Israel,
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he would not kill
Israelis to get to Hamas.
He would actually care about
collateral damage called human bodies.
There would be precision through
intelligence gathering and
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specified operations to limit or
eliminate the likelihood
of innocent death.
Here's the other part.
There are lawmakers in America saying,
kill all Palestinians.
[00:06:41]
The irony of how polarized
this issue has become,
how America has basically said no
to innocent civilians being killed,
having the opportunity
to actually get water,
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America said no to that.
The Palestinian population on
the Gaza Strip, look at it.
Look it up.
What's the age?
Well, over 40% are 14 and under.
Those are children, ladies and gentlemen.
[00:07:14]
So, yes,
you condemn killing in all forms, and
you condemn killing of innocent
individual in all forms.
But don't fall for the framework of the
polarized narrative they have handed you.
The first casualty of
war is always the truth.
[00:07:33]
All right, Yasmin, thoughts?
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, we like to think
of our higher education institutions,
that they hold themselves to
a higher standard than most other
institutions in this country.
But we know that that
isn't actually the case.
These are legacy institutions that
have been around for as long or
[00:07:50]
even longer than this
country has been around.
I always have respect and
deference for educators and also for
the people who work in education.
But the institutions themselves
can be incredibly problematic.
We're seeing it all over the country,
from grade school levels all the way up
to the highest level of the Ivy League.
[00:08:09]
And it's incredibly disheartening, and
that's putting it lightly to see what's
happening in this country as a result
of what's happening in Gaza.
It's made a lot of Americans distrustful
of an already untrustworthy government,
and it's shown a lot of Americans that our
freedom of speech is a protected freedom
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to a certain extent.
If intellectual, emphatic discussion and
peaceful demonstrations can't happen on
a university campus, these are places that
are supposed to champion higher thought,
then we're in a really scary
position as a country.
And that's not even to say anything
about what's actually happening in Gaza.
[00:08:43]
It's also heartbreaking.
We already feel incredibly helpless.
Millions of people have come out in
protests around the world against what's
happening in Gaza to the Palestinians,
and then we see things like this, and
it doesn't help.
None of it helps.
>> Speaker 1: Very well said.
[00:08:59]
Very well said.
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