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

The interim president and provost of the University of Pennsylvania will host a “community listening session” on campus Thursday as encampments and protests over Israel’s treatment of Gaza have surfaced on college campuses elsewhere, resulting in arrests.

“Our campus is deeply impacted by external events, as the past months have demonstrated all too clearly,” interim president J. Larry Jameson wrote in a message to the campus community Monday evening. “We are and must continue taking action that brings us together to meet the challenges of this time and to remain true to our educational purpose.”

The hour-long campus listening session is not open to the public or press, Penn said. Attendees need a Penn ID to attend, Jameson wrote.

» READ MORE: Protests roiling U.S. colleges escalate with arrests, new encampments and closures

Students, faculty, and staff will be invited “to share their thoughts on the impacts of the conflict in the Middle East on our campus,” Jameson wrote.

So far Penn and other local campuses including Temple, Rutgers, and Haverford are not experiencing disruptive protests, arrests, and encampments, similar to those at Columbia, Yale, and other colleges in the last week.

At Swarthmore College, a group of students led by its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and the Swarthmore Palestine Coalition set up several tents on Parrish Beach by Clothier Hall, according to an email sent to the campus Tuesday afternoon by acting co-presidents Tomoko Sakomura and Rob Goldberg. (President Valerie Smith is on sabbatical this semester.)

“We will work with the student organizers of this latest act of protest to try to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion, but this may take some time to resolve,” they wrote. “In the meantime, we expect that students and their allies will protest peacefully and be mindful of how their actions might affect other members of our community.”

About 20 tents were up by Tuesday night with about 25 students. Ragad, 20, a sophomore peace and conflict studies major from Philadelphia, who is Palestinian, said the number of students protesting has fluctuated throughout the day with the peak at about 200.

“We won’t move until our demands are met,” said Ragad, who asked that her last name not be used because of concerns about harassment. Among the demands is a call for Swarthmore to “divest” from Israeli investments, as students on other campuses have insisted. Workshops and teach-ins will be held at the encampment, she said. Some professors have visited the encampment, too, Ragad said.

“We’re all in this together,” she said.

Sakomura and Goldberg, the Swarthmore co-presidents wrote that they recognize the encampment “may cause some students, faculty, and staff members to feel uncomfortable or even intimidated” and directed them to campus counseling services.

They acknowledged the protest may attract attention outside the campus and said they were increasing public safety’s presence on campus.

“We know this may draw some criticism, but we take this action in the best interest of our entire community,” they wrote.

Columbia canceled in-person classes on Monday and said it would switch to a hybrid mode for the rest of the semester after more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators had set up an encampment on the New York City campus last week and were arrested. Protesters also were arrested at New York University and Yale, as encampments spread to other colleges, including the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus.

» READ MORE: Student protesters shouting ‘divest from genocide’ disrupt Penn board of trustees meeting

Penn last semester and earlier this semester experienced multiple protests and demonstrations by pro-Palestinian groups. Early last month, student protesters shouting “divest from genocide” disrupted Penn’s board of trustees meeting; the board quickly passed its resolutions and adjourned the meeting.

The campus was roiled after the Palestine Writes Literary Festival was held on campus in September, which critics said included speakers with a history of making antisemitic remarks. Those tensions escalated after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military actions in Gaza.

» READ MORE: Donor and Wharton board chair Marc Rowan criticizes Penn’s arts and sciences school, drawing backlash

Deep pocketed donors protested and called for the resignation of former president Liz Magill and board chair Scott L. Bok. Both resigned in December after Magill’s testimony before a congressional committee on colleges’ handling of antisemitism on campus.

Over the weekend, the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, reported that Penn had suspended the pro-Palestinian student group Penn Against the Occupation from campus. 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.”

The student group called it a “sham investigation,” according to the newspaper.

Also last week, The New York Post reported that about 200 alumni sent a letter to Jameson asking that eight Penn professors, whom they accused of antisemitism, be sanctioned for their speech and behavior.

“We respectfully request that the University investigate and hold responsible professors and university employees who have been involved with pro-terrorism events, have discriminated against students in courses for being Jewish, Israeli, or Zionist, and have shared antisemitism tropes or revisionist history,” they wrote in a letter obtained by The Inquirer.

» READ MORE: Penn president Liz Magill has resigned following backlash over her testimony about antisemitism

Anne Norton, one of the professors named in the letter, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Those who accuse me of antisemitism rely on — and perpetuate — a complete erasure of Palestinians …”

The university declined comment on the letter.

» READ MORE: Penn hearing board recommended sanctions against Amy Wax in June, but her appeal means the process isn’t over

Penn’s faculty handbook governs the disciplinary process against professors and if the case against law professor Amy Wax is any indication, that process can take awhile once a formal complaint is filed. The case against Wax, who has called into question the academic ability of Black students and said the country would be better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration, has gone on for more than two years.

Jameson in his statement said he also asked Penn Public Safety and Penn Wellness “to bolster their services” during this time, which came as Passover, one of the most significant Jewish holidays, started Monday night.

And he directed the chairs of the University Task Force on Antisemitism and the Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community to extend the comment period on their initial work. Those groups were formed last semester as the university coped with allegations that it wasn’t doing enough to protect its Jewish students and faculty or those advocating on behalf of Palestinians.

Inquirer staff photographer Monica Herndon contributed to this article.