Penn issues new temporary guidelines on campus protests: Encampments are banned

The University of Pennsylvania on Thursday issued new temporary guidelines on campus demonstrations that for the first time specifically refer to encampments and prohibit them.

The university also announced a task force that will look at the school’s “open expression” guidelines over the next academic year and recommend more permanent guidelines, which will become the first revision to the long-standing policy since 1989.

The move comes as Penn and other universities across the country begin reviewing their procedures after a tumultuous spring semester that included the installation of pro-Palestinian encampments on campuses. At Penn, an encampment was up for more than two weeks and eventually removed by Penn and city police.

» READ MORE: Philly Police have cleared Penn’s Pro-Palestinian encampment and arrested 33 protesters

“To ensure the safety of the Penn community and to protect the health and property of individuals, encampments and overnight demonstrations are not permitted in any University location, regardless of space (indoor or outdoor),” the new guidelines state. “Unauthorized overnight activities will be considered trespassing and addressed.”

The guidelines also for the first time specifically prohibit light projections on buildings without permission from university officials. In November, messages including “from river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” were projected on several Penn buildings, including Penn Commons, Huntsman Hall and Irvine Auditorium. It is a sentiment that some have used as a rallying cry for the destruction of Israel, and the university said at the time that an investigation was underway and the school would take action.

Controversy began at Penn in September when the Palestine Writes literary festival, which critics said included speakers with a history of making antisemitic remarks, was held on campus. Tension escalated after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military response. Donors criticized the university for not doing enough to protect Jewish students, and then-Penn president Liz Magill resigned in December following a backlash over her congressional testimony about the university’s handling of antisemitic incidents.

Pro-Palestinian students and faculty said the university didn’t do enough to protect their rights, and the encampment was erected at the end of April.

» READ MORE: Brandeis Center files federal discrimination complaint against Penn over handling of antisemitism

The restrictions quickly drew pushback from some students. Mira Sydow, one of the three Penn seniors who were banned from campus and barred from attending commencement after participating in the encampment, called the new rules “a total betrayal to the principles of open expression, free thought, and free speech on campus.” On Thursday, College Green, the site of the former encampment, was still barricaded with “no trespassing” signs posted.

While Sydow believes that the restrictions “are targeted specifically at pro-Palestinian protests,” she said they would impact anyone who wants to protest any issue on campus.

”The irony is that these guidelines so severely restrict free speech on campus for everyone — including Jewish students, who have something to say and want to say it with a protest,” said Sydow, an urban studies and English major who was able to receive her diploma but will have a permanent mark on her academic record.

But Ben Messafi, a rising Penn sophomore, called the new protest guidelines “a good first step” for combating antisemitism on campus — disagreeing that the new guidelines would eventually hurt Jewish students and the expression of pro-Israel speech.

The guidelines stipulate that people unaffiliated with Penn who attend on-campus protests “may have less expansive open expression rights.” Messafi noted that unaffiliated pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel people have attended demonstrations on campus since Oct. 7, pointing to the man who sprayed encampment members with a chemical as an example.

”When we were having non-student pro-Israel people come on campus, it was generally hard to control our message,” he said. “We had to continually defend ourselves and say, ‘This isn’t coming from us.’”

The new guidelines also repeat rules already in place, such as requiring 48 hours’ notice for a demonstration and prohibiting climbing on or engaging in other protest activity on Penn sculptures or statues. During the encampment, some protesters mounted Penn’s iconic Benjamin Franklin statue on College Green, hung on it a Palestinian flag, and vandalized it.

The guidelines govern “when, where, and how open expression” can take place on the campus, according to university leaders who announced the new temporary rules, including interim president J. Larry Jameson.

Under the rules, groups may not “erect structures, walls, barriers, sculptures, or other objects on university property without prior permission from the Vice Provost for University Life.” Demonstrations are not allowed in many locations, including private offices or residences, classrooms, museums and libraries.

“The purpose of these Temporary Standards and Procedures is to reinforce and reaffirm Penn’s commitment to open expression and, at the same time, ensure that events, demonstrations, and other expressions of free speech are appropriately managed, while allowing Penn to deliver its core missions of teaching, research, service, and patient care without disruption,” the university leaders said in their email.

Updating the procedures was a recommendation made by both the University’s Task Force on Antisemitism and the Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community, which released their reports last month.

The guidelines also note that “schools, departments, institutes, individual faculty, students, and staff may not serve as ‘individual fronts’ or ‘proxies’ for non-Penn affiliated organizations [for]... use of Penn venues to organize or host an event on their behalf.”

Restrictions on “amplified sound” also are included in the guidelines, which is not new. On weekdays when classes are in session, amplified sound can only be used on College Green, Blanche Levy Park or Penn Commons between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., the guidelines state. And it’s entirely prohibited during university events, final exams and reading days, the guidelines state. Some complained during the encampment about noise.

“If noise resulting from an event in an outdoor space may at times interfere or conflict with library, office, and classroom activities, the continued use of that outdoor space may be denied,” the guidelines state.

The new guidelines will not change how campus groups such as UPenn Against the Occupation and the Freedom School of Palestine plan to protest in the future, said a rising Penn junior in both groups who organized this spring’s encampment.

“They’re trying to intimidate us and it’s not going to work,” said the student, who requested anonymity for fears of retaliation from Penn administrators. But she voiced concern for how the temporary guidelines might impact any protests on campus “that Penn might dislike.”

Encampments aren’t a new protest tactic at Penn. In 2022, the student organization Fossil Free Penn held a 39-day-long protest on College Green to condemn the university’s investments in the fossil fuel industry, which ended with police arresting 19 students after they marched on the field during halftime at the homecoming football game. That same year, another group of students set up an encampment alongside activists in West Philadelphia to protest the sale of the UC Townhomes and urge Penn to prevent the evictions of residents at the affordable housing community adjacent to campus.

Noah Rubin, a Jewish senior on campus and the former copresident of the Penn Israel Public Affairs Committee, said he was “very worried” that antisemitism will persist on campus in spite of the guidelines.

Rubin, who organized a campus vigil for the Israeli hostages taken on Oct. 7 and spoke at a rally against antisemitism, said he changed his route to classes to avoid passing by the encampment after hearing repeated chants in support of an intifada and Al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas.

Jewish Penn students reported 132 incidents of harassment during the duration of the encampment, according to the results of a survey circulated by the Penn President’s Jewish Student Advisory Council and obtained by The Inquirer. A handful of those complaints were about confrontations with encampment members, with two Jewish students reporting being called homophobic slurs and a “dirty liar.”