Students call on Penn to drop discipline against protesters, fully divest from fossil fuels

University of Pennsylvania students are criticizing the school for initiating a disciplinary process in more than 30 cases involving students engaged in protests, including taking over the football field during halftime at the homecoming game last month.

“It’s just alarming to us that they have been responding with such fervor in a disciplinary, punitive way rather than engaging with us in a constructive, regenerative way,” Emma Glasser, a senior material science engineering and environmental science major from Princeton, said before students held an on-campus rally Wednesday.

Students have been calling on Penn to fully divest from fossil fuels, make payments to the city in lieu of taxes, and provide money to save University City Townhomes and stop the displacement of low-income families. Penn does not own UC Townhomes and has said it does not have plans to purchase or redevelop them.

» READ MORE: Penn students claim university ‘campaign of intimidation’ as they face disciplinary hearings for protests

Disciplinary actions stem from several protests, including disruption of convocation in September, a 39-day encampment on the College Green, and the football game demonstration where 17 students were arrested. In total there are 35 cases of discipline, Glasser said, but some students face consequences for more than one protest.

Students put forth a petition with more than 850 signatures, calling on Penn to drop the disciplinary charges and refrain from bringing future disciplinary action against peaceful protesters. The petition also calls on the university to make changes to its “Open Expression” policy, with student input.

Penn in a statement said its process for student discipline has been in place for years and “provides a fair means of assessing whether violations of the Student Code of Conduct have occurred, while taking into account a student’s right to protest consistent with the University’s Open Expression Guidelines.”

» READ MORE: Penn students storm Franklin Field at halftime, protesting for climate and community justice

The student rally came one day after Penn president Liz Magill and board of trustees chair Scott L. Bok said in a statement posted on the university’s website that Penn “does not directly hold investments in any companies focused on the production of fossil fuels.”

“This includes Penn holding no investments in 200 of the companies with the largest potential carbon emissions content in their reserves,” Magill and Bok said.

That goes further than the school did two years ago when it said it did not directly hold investments in “companies focused on the carbon-intensive production of tar sands or thermal coal.”

But the student group Fossil Free Penn said Penn’s policies, including a goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions across the endowment by 2050, don’t go far enough. The school should also refrain from indirect investments, students said.

“While both of these policies sound nice on paper, they fail to encapsulate the majority of Penn’s investments in fossil fuels,” students said. “... Indirect investments — what Penn is not divesting from — took up 99.7% of Princeton’s investments in fossil fuels at the time of their divestment. We have good reason to believe that Penn’s endowment is not substantially different.”

» READ MORE: Princeton has cut ties with 90 fossil fuel companies. Fossil Free Penn says there’s more to do.

Princeton said in September it would take steps to “dissociate” from 90 companies related to the fossil fuel industry, 10 with which the university had current or recent financial involvement.

Magill and Bok said Penn’s primary goal remains generating strong endowment returns to support Penn’s educational mission.

And while “we all share the same role of a decarbonized economy, the significant role that fossil fuels play in today’s world ... make policy decisions complex. We must move away from fossil fuels, but we can only do so completely once we can produce abundant, affordable, and secure energy from carbon-free sources.”

They said Penn encourages its investment managers to push companies to make changes that will result in less emissions, and if the companies refuse, reconsider investments with them. The university, they said, also has about $250 million in investments with companies involved in energy transition.

Students weren’t swayed, likening the steps Penn has taken to “trying to put a Band-aid on a bullet hole.”

Glasser is facing discipline for joining in the halftime protest, which delayed the game. Students have said they have heard they could face academic probation, suspension, or other sanctions.

Glasser said she’s not worried.

» READ MORE: Penn students end nearly six-week encampment on College Green after their football game protest

“I don’t think these disciplinary processes are going to make a big difference in my life,” she said. “The implications of this campaign of suppression of student voices is what really alarms me.”

Gigi Varlotta, 23, a senior Africana studies major from Pittsburgh, who was arrested and faces discipline from the halftime protest, wishes Penn would have taken students’ demands seriously and reached out after the arrest with support, rather than pushing discipline.

But Varlotta is undeterred and on Tuesday evening was at University City Townhomes, making signs for Wednesday’s rally.

“It was what we needed to do,” Varlotta said of the halftime protest, “and we were willing to deal with whatever consequences came after.”

More than 130 faculty have signed a Nov. 7 letter in support of students and the issues they are pushing and in defense of free expression, criticizing Penn’s decision to respond “with armed force” at the football game.

“We are doing all we can to support the students and try to persuade the university to approach this in a different way,” said Simon Richter, a professor of German studies and environmental humanities, who signed.

The school should drop the disciplinary proceedings and engage in dialogue with students, ideally mediated by a third party, he said.

To threaten discipline is “getting in the way of their academic success, which seems to me unconscionable,” he said.

Penn has maintained that students’ protests have interfered with the rights of others in the university community, by disrupting events.

But Richter said, “Given the climate emergency, ... the actions of these students are reasonable.”

A letter from parents also is circulating. Among those who have signed is Anjali Enjeti, 49, an author and activist, whose daughter, Mira Sydow, a junior urban studies and English major from Georgia, was arrested during the homecoming protest. She said students’ actions were careful, safe, and well-thought-out and caused minimal disruption for the sake of a crucial message.

“The bad actors, to me, in this case is the university,” she said. “They know fossil fuels are destroying the climate. They know they are complicit in that.”

She said she is proud of her daughter, who comes from a family of activists.

“This is life work for her,” she said. “This is what she will be doing for the rest of her life.”