Harvard removes huge BLM sign displayed by two professors since 2020 

Officials at Harvard University have removed a giant Black Lives Matter sign two professors at the school have displayed from their office windows for the past five years.  

Biology professors Bence Ölveczky and Mansi Srivastava posted the 50-foot sign from their lab windows at Harvard’s Northwest Science Building following the 2020 death of George Floyd during his arrest by police in Minneapolis.

As reported by the Harvard Crimson, the school’s dean of science, Jeffrey Lichtman, handed a letter to Ölveczky on Aug.19 stating that the removal of the sign was imminent, explaining it was in violation of campus use rules that were implemented in August 2024 in the wake of pro-Palestine protests on campus. 

According to the Crimson, the letter explained the sign violated the university’s rules concerning “self-mounted displays,” and that the professors had not received approval to display the sign from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), which oversees the facility.

The two professors questioned both the decision to remove the sign and the timing of its removal.

“We need more clarity on why they believe that our sign is violating the policies, because the letter did not provide that clarity,” Srivastava told the Crimson.

In a statement to MassLive, a local Massachusetts news site, Ölveczky said he thought the move included a political motivation. “You would have to be very naive not to see the link between the sign’s removal and the university’s repeated efforts to placate the Trump administration on issues ranging from DEI to the Israel-Palestine conflict,” he said. “This action is but the latest instance of Harvard yielding to donor pressure and political masters.”

In an op-ed published by the Crimson following the removal of the sign, Ölveczky wrote: “America was founded on the premise that ‘all men are created equal.’ Yet nearly 250 years later, we are nowhere close to living that truth. The letters in our windows were a daily reminder of that – and perhaps they nudged others to reflect as well.”

However, FAS spokesperson James Chisolm insisted that no signage could be displayed in the science building windows without approval. “The letters mounted in several office windows in the Northwest Lab Building constitute a ‘self-mounted display,’” wrote Chisolm in an explanatory statement. “This is not an approved installation, and that location is not one where exhibits and displays are allowed.”

He added that “any installation like this in this location would be taken down, regardless of the content. If the display said, ‘BEAT YALE,’ it would have to be removed.”

Featured image: Bence P. Ölveczky, published with op-ed to The Harvard Crimson