Pro-Palestinian encampment rises at Penn as students and faculty protest over war in Gaza

As campus unrest over Israel’s treatment of Gaza continued to rage at colleges across the country, hundreds of students and faculty in Philadelphia and Princeton took up the cause, staging encampments on area campuses, walking out of classes, and waging lively protests.

At the University of Pennsylvania, students erected about 10 tents on the College Green late Thursday afternoon, as Penn became the latest local campus with an encampment. The group at Penn described itself in a news release as a coalition of Penn students, staff, and faculty, along with other Philadelphia community members and students, and called the effort its “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

Penn said in a statement Thursday evening that it was “closely monitoring the encampment” and so far had “not received any reports of threatening or violent behavior by the protestors.”

» READ MORE: Here’s what to know about the student protests over Gaza on campuses in Philly and across the U.S.

But a spokesperson made clear Penn would not tolerate protest or speech that violates the university’s policies, disrupts its business, or causes an “intimidating, hostile, or violent environment” and warned there would be consequences for such actions.

Earlier in the day, an attempt to erect tents and start an encampment at Princeton was quickly shut down by the university, and two graduate students were arrested and charged with trespassing, joining a growing number of arrests of protesters at campuses across the country.

More than 40 college campuses nationwide over the last weekhad encampments or sit-ins as of Thursday, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which is tracking the movement. That was up from 30 on Wednesday.

“Things have hit a climax and [this is] yet another way for us to condemn what’s happening and also put pressure on Penn to do right,” said Dagmawi Woubshet, an associate Penn professor of English and a member of Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine, who participated in a walkout Thursday.

Hundreds of people waving Palestinian flags converged near the Button at Penn shortly after 4 p.m., chanting: “Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest.”

Led by organizers shouting “Free Palestine!” through bullhorns, the group clapped and cheered.

”Today, we are calling for a just and permanent cease-fire,” a woman told the crowd. She called for an “end to the Israeli occupation,” to more applause.

Police officers surrounded the crowd, with metal barricades set up on the fringes, as Penn was poised to become part of a national movement gripping the nation and catalyzing debate over the war in Gaza, free speech on college campuses, and American support for Israel.

A group of people with an Israeli flag looked on, at times engaging in heated exchanges with the protesters. But there was also a calmness, with protesters at times reading poetry.

Meanwhile, in a campus building nearby, Penn president J. Larry Jameson, attempting to ease tensions, held a listening session for students, faculty, and staff where views were widely divided. The meeting was open only to people with Penn IDs.

The pro-Palestinian faculty group at Penn is calling on the university to disclose its financial holdings “so we have a sense where Penn is investing its money,” Woubshet said, and to divest from corporations profiting from Israel’s war in Gaza. Penn also must condemn Israel’s bombing and damaging of universities in Gaza, promise to defend its Palestinian students and their allies, and provide amnesty to students facing disciplinary measures for their advocacy, he said.

That includes, he said, lifting the suspension on the pro-Palestinian student group Penn Against the Occupation from campus. Penn banned the group last week, citing noncompliance with university rules.

Faculty in the group have been frustrated since the university’s response to the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, held on campus in September, he said. The faculty group, of which he is a part, formed in January.

“At each turn, the frustration has mounted and is expressing itself in this kind of bold way,” he said. “This is in direct response to the antics of many universities to suppress students’ First Amendment rights and faculty’s First Amendment rights and academic freedom, and also that this war drags on and the calamity is unspeakable.”

Eve M. Troutt Powell, a professor of history and Africana studies, also joined the walkout.

“I feel very strong in my belief that I should be there,” she said, adding that as an African American woman she takes very personally the unfair treatment of Palestinians and that the word Black could just as easily be substituted for Palestinian. “It’s the only way that I can cope with watching the news coming all the time from Gaza.”

She said she is determined to “keep our university’s eye on Gaza” and to underscore the importance of universities and the work they do to uphold freedom of speech and academic freedom.

» READ MORE: The House speaker wants Columbia’s president to resign over pro-Palestinian protests. Philly-area students and faculty have their own demands.

More than 100 protesters gathered at City Hall around 2 p.m. as part of a student-led demonstration against the war. The group marched a two-mile route through Center City and headed toward University City.

The rally took to the streets around 2:40 p.m., with people shaking noisemakers and chanting alternately in English and Arabic. In what has now become a chorus at pro-Palestinian rallies, the crowd focused its message against President Joe Biden and called on leaders to end the Israeli military campaign in Gaza: ”Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry, we will never let you die!”

Gov. Josh Shapiro, in Washington on Wednesday, seemed poised to step into the spotlight again if protests become disruptive on Pennsylvania campuses, potentially with force.

“If the universities in accordance with their policies can’t guarantee the safety and security and well-being of the students, then I think it is incumbent upon a local mayor or local governor or local town councilor, whoever is the local leadership there, to step in and enforce the law,” Shapiro told Politico.

Shapiro was a key voice in the bipartisan criticism of former Penn president Liz Magill’s testimony on antisemitism before a congressional committee in December that ultimately led to her resignation.

At Princeton, activities started early Thursday morning when fewer than 100 people gathered on campus and some in the group began setting up about a half-dozen tents, which the university said was a violation of university policy.

“After repeated warnings from the Department of Public Safety to cease the activity and leave the area, two graduate students were arrested for trespassing,” the university said in a statement. “All tents were then voluntarily taken down by protestors.”

The two graduate students were barred from campus, pending a disciplinary process, the university said.

But other students and faculty members remained on a campus lawn, continuing to protest Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza. Tensions rose, and at one point someone who appeared to be associated with the Ivy League university led a Pulitzer Prize-winning Middle East correspondent away from the megaphone.

Students shouted “shame” and “let him speak” as Chris Hedges, formerly of the New York Times, was removed, an incident adding to the charged environment that saw more than 200 students chanting “from the river to the sea” and other pro-Palestinian slogans.

Urbi, a doctoral student from India who did not share her last name over concerns about her U.S. visa, said Hedges was removed from campus because of a ban on amplified sound. During earlier portions of the protest, students sat silently as speakers shouted — without a megaphone — messages of support for Palestinians and criticisms of Israel.

The student called Princeton’s response “deeply frustrating.”

The protest also drew a small gathering of pro-Israel supporters and those who said they supported the university’s containment of the encampment.

Riva Levy, 60, stood with a group of around 10 other supporters, one who yelled out at pro-Palestinian protesters that the word intifada was a threat to Jews.

“Nothing is going to change in the Middle East until the hostages are free,” said Levy, holding a sign depicting some of the estimated 250 hostages taken by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war in Gaza.

» READ MORE: Penn leaders plan ‘listening session’ as campus unrest escalates nationally over Gaza-Israel conflict

At Swarthmore College, students set up tents on Monday evening, with as many as 200 protesters participating, according to one student organizer. The encampment was still in place Thursday night.

Inflaming tensions at Penn is the university’s recent suspension of the pro-Palestinian student group Penn Against the Occupation from campus.

Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, in a statement this week, condemned “the capricious and one-sided suppression of dissent at Penn this year, most recently seen in the unjustified ban” of the student group.

The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, reported that more than 40 Penn and Philadelphia organizations had signed a letter to Philadelphia universities in support of the student group.

The university told the newspaper that the group “failed to comply with policies that govern student organizations at Penn, despite repeated efforts to engage with the group and to provide opportunities to resolve noncompliance.”

Staff writers Max Marin and Gillian McGoldrick, and videographer Gabe Coffey contributed to this article.