Should Swarthmore students’ use of a bullhorn constitute assault? Tensions remain as discipline from pro-Palestinian protests continue.

At Swarthmore College, several students face discipline for alleged “assault, endangerment or infliction of physical harm” during pro-Palestinian protests.

Their actions? Using a bullhorn “in extremely close proximity” to staff members. They sought medical treatment for hearing damage, “which for some still persists,” said spokeswoman Alisa Giardinelli.

Students and several professors who support them question whether the noise could have harmed anyone, and say the assault charges are just another tactic by the college to silence protesters. Students also face other disciplinary charges, including intimidation and disorderly conduct.

» READ MORE: Philly colleges are bracing for a potentially volatile fall semester after a year of encampments and resignations

“It’s pretty preposterous,” said Adi Chattopadhyay, 19, a sophomore from California who is part of Swarthmore’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and is facing disciplinary charges. “It’s just about the school exerting as much power as they can and making students feel like they are weak.”

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The disagreement over the bullhorn is the latest example of ongoing tensions between pro-Palestinian protesters, supporters of Israel, and colleges attempting to mediate. Encampments that were erected during the spring semester, and in some cases later dismantled by police, were not part of fall protests, perhaps because some campuses, including the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, and Swarthmore, clarified their policies and explicitly banned them.

» READ MORE: Temple agrees to provide training and review its response to antisemitism, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian complaints

But flashpoints have continued, locally and nationally, including a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Temple University outside the Hillel center, and a raid by Penn police on a protester’s off-campus house that police said was connected to an ongoing vandalism investigation. At the University of Washington last month, the president’s house and car were vandalized. The vandalism included pro-Hamas symbols and accused the president of being “complicit in genocide,” according to Inside Higher Education. And the issue of how much noise amplification from protests is OK has become another point of contention in the conflict.

Swarthmore also faces dueling complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights that it failed to properly handle claims of antisemitism and Muslim and Palestinian discrimination on its campus. The college acknowledged the department is investigating the antisemitism complaint, but said it has not been notified that an investigation is underway on the anti-Muslim and Palestinian charges.

The department’s website notes two ongoing investigations at Swarthmore based on discrimination involving shared ancestry, but a spokesperson declined to specify the complainants.

“This year ... is a year when presidents are much more systematic about when they speak up, how they speak up, and ... about how they attend to the demands of the stakeholders in their campus communities and beyond,” said Derrick Anderson, senior vice present for education futures at the American Council on Education. “Universities are creating new rules to keep up with the behavior of individuals and I think we will continue to see that.”

Campuses, he said, should take four steps: Don’t infringe on free speech, follow the law, communicate clearly and transparently, and enforce rules consistently. That doesn’t mean they can’t set limits, though, private schools much more than public ones.

» READ MORE: Penn sent officers to raid a pro-Palestinian activist house off campus. They said it was in connection with a vandalism investigation.

“People are entitled to express their opinions,” he said, “but they are not entitled to express them in whatever way they want.”

At Swarthmore, 25 students face disciplinary action for alleged violation of school policies pertaining to pro-Palestinian protests. Two are major misconduct cases before panels of students, faculty, and staff members that could lead to punishment including suspension and expulsion. One of those is underway. Nine others are for minor misconduct, and about two-thirds of those have been completed.

All of the charges relate to incidents that occurred last academic year before students erected an encampment in April.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations earlier this fall filed a discrimination complaint against Swarthmore on behalf of students and professors, and last month named Swarthmore one of two colleges “of particular concern” — the other being the University of Chicago.

“These campuses have suppressed the American tradition of free speech, denied inclusion, and systematically punished peaceful civil disobedience by involving state force and disciplinary measures against those who oppose the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Corey Saylor, CAIR research and advocacy director, said in a statement.

Three professors who support the student protesters said the college has administered harsher punishment than it did to students in protests on other issues. They also asserted that the college is targeting students of color; 20 protesters facing discipline, or four-fifths, are in that group.

At the same time, the school has failed to take protesters’ claims of bias and discrimination seriously, they said.

“It’s disturbing as a community member to see that the college feels comfortable publicly casting doubt on the experiences of its own students, faculty, and staff when they come forward,” said Sangina Patnaik, an associate professor of English literature.

Last week, Patnaik learned that a colleague who had called her and SJP members terrorists will be required to complete an educational program after an outside law firm hired by the college to investigate found the behavior was “unreasonable and unwelcome conduct,” according to an email from the college’s human resources office. But the firm stopped short of saying the behavior reached “the requisite level of severity, pervasiveness, or persistence to constitute a violation of the college’s harassment policies.”

Patnaik said it should have been considered a violation.

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Patnaik, Edwin Mayorga, an associate professor of educational studies, and Ahmad Shokr, an associate professor who specializes in the modern Middle East, also said students haven’t been permitted to have legal counsel inside the school hearings, and in some cases, to introduce witnesses. The college has contended that its process doesn’t allow for legal counsel and is supposed to be educational.

The college says it has evidence to support the claim that harm occurred and medical attention was sought.

Patnaik, who serves as a case manager in support of student protesters, said the professors found no prior cases of assault charges involving bullhorns, which are standard fare at many protests.

“The students did a lot of research ...,” Shokr said. What they used was “advertised as being safe for indoor and outdoor use.”

It only reaches 105 decibels, he said, and it’s highly unlikely hearing damage would result.

Fatima Hmada, 21, a senior sociology and anthropology major from Philadelphia, said she is facing discipline for using a megaphone at a protest that lasted 22 minutes, only eight of them indoors. The megaphone, she said, was never at maximum loudness, she said.

Dances held at the colleges have higher decibel levels and last longer, she said.

Audiology experts say that hearing damage can result from exposure to sudden, loud noise, such as from a bullhorn.

“A hundred and five decibels is pretty loud, especially if you are in close proximity, and could cause acoustic trauma leading to temporary or permanent hearing loss,” said Brianna Casey, an audiologist for Listen 2 Life hearing centers, with offices in Flourtown, Souderton, and Chalfont.

Samantha Anne, professor of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, said it’s possible to listen to sounds at 85 decibels for up to eight hours and be fine, but for every three decibels added, safe exposure time is halved.

“When you get over 100 decibels, we are talking minutes before it can start damaging your hearing,” she said.

It depends on proximity to the sound, its level, and the duration, she said.

“Some people might be more susceptible to hearing loss with certain medical conditions,” she said.

The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which advocates for free speech, has noticed colleges enacting stricter guidelines on amplified sound.

“We are researching what would be a reasonable decibel limit,” said Alex Morey, FIRE’s vice president of campus advocacy.

In Swarthmore’s case, FIRE would check whether a protester aimed a bullhorn at someone’s head, or if the college has allowed bullhorn use at other rallies without discipline, indicating it may be treating pro-Palestinian students differently.

Schools, she said, must have “maximum tolerance for even the most controversial expression” and zero tolerance for violence.

In a statement to the student newspaper, The Phoenix, Andy Hirsch, Swarthmore’s vice president for communications and marketing, called some of CAIR’s allegations “mischaracterizations, if not outright false.”

Swarthmore administrators explained to students repeatedly how they could express views within the code of conduct, and only when they refused to comply was discipline initiated, the college said.

» READ MORE: Swarthmore College’s pro-Palestinian encampment disbands after 4 weeks and stalled negotiations

In response to allegations of targeting students of color, the college has asserted that the charges had nothing to do with race or identity and were based solely on alleged misconduct.

College officials also argued they were consistent in enforcing policies, noting that several pro-Israel students also faced disciplinary charges last year.

The pro-Palestinian protests are different than some prior protests, such as those for fossil fuel divestment, said Stephanie Ives, vice president for student affairs.

In this case, she said, “there are ... distinct populations of passionate students and faculty and staff who believe wholeheartedly in their side, their experience, their historical perspective.”

There is a sense of conflict in the college community, she said, and the administration has been left to sort out complaints.

» READ MORE: Why Penn became the hotspot for Gaza protests in Philly instead of Temple, Drexel, or La Salle

Some say the college hasn’t adequately supported Jewish students. On Oct. 7, the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, Swarthmore’s SJP chapter posted on social media: “Happy Oct. 7 everyone,” calling it a “glorious day.”

Ben Schwartz, an alumnus, whose father, Mark, a local lawyer, also graduated from the college, wrote to Swarthmore’s board of managers that he would not send his son there.

“One day in the future, the people of Swarthmore College will wonder where their Jews went, and they will find them at other colleges doing interesting and important work,” he wrote.

Mark Schwartz, who represents several Swarthmore professors in disputes with the college, said his son didn’t get a response.

Jed Siev, an associate professor of psychology, has supported Jewish students disturbed by protesters’ behavior. While Swarthmore promotes academic freedom, anyone who disagrees with protesters finds themselves “vilified,” he said. Barak Mendelsohn, an Israeli-born professor at Haverford College, was scheduled to speak at Swarthmore last year but was interrupted by protesters, he said.

“A heckler’s veto is not in the spirit of academic freedom,” he said.

If other minority groups were targeted in this way, it would not be tolerated, he said.

“It boggles the mind that there could be a group that says ‘Happy Oct. 7,’” he said.

The college, noting it received dozens of complaints about SJP’s post, condemned it in a statement; SJP said it took down the message that day, noting it was posted without consent of all core organizing members.

Despite the arduous discipline process, student protesters stand by their actions in support of more than 45,000 who have lost their lives in Gaza.

“As an Arab American student, as a Muslim student, I feel that it is important to continue to protest these atrocities and ask our college to be better and uphold Quaker values,” Hmada said. “This is something I could never come to regret.”

Hmada, who faces over 30 charges related to protest activity, said she had five disciplinary hearings in one week before finals while trying to focus on applying to graduate school.

“It’s been very tough to balance,” said Hmada, who added that she is a first-generation, low-income college student.

Chattopadhyay, a computer science and history major, said his hearing on an assault charge for megaphone use in February is likely to happen in the spring. He said he spent fall semester on disciplinary probation, which prevented him from applying for spring semester abroad.

“All of us are just sitting here in limbo, not knowing what our future holds,” he said, “and that has been deeply unsettling.”