Pro-Palestinian protestors at Penn's campus buck admin's calls to disband encampment

Last updated: Saturday, April 27

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pro-Palestinian protestors camping on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus have bucked university leadership’s calls to disband, as they held ground for a second day Saturday .

On Thursday, students and activists marched through Center City and set up an encampment in the heart of campus , following a movement of students at schools across the country to protest the ongoing Israel-Hamas war .

The university said they closely monitored the encampment and vigilantly supported the rights of community members to protest peacefully but were notified Friday of blatant violations of university policies and received “credible reports” of harassment and intimidation, noting that a nearby statue of Ben Franklin had antisemitic graffiti on it.

“The harassing and intimidating comments and actions by some of the protesters, which were reported and documented by many in our community, violate Penn’s open expression guidelines and state and federal law, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. All members of our community deserve to access our facilities without fear of harassment or being subjected to discriminatory comments or threats,” the university said.

In a letter to the Penn community, administrators said if students and activists did not disband immediately, they would face sanctions.

“Shocked was one way to put it … that the president was so quick to condemn us,” said Eliana, one of the many Penn students participating in the encampment. “There feels a visible and almost tangible inaccuracy of how we’re being portrayed.”

Pro-Palestinian protestors responded to the disbandment with chants late Friday night as a smaller counterprotest of pro-Israeli students gathered on the sidewalk.

As the night built up and more people gathered, police put a barrier between both sets of protestors.

Organizers acknowledged that graffiti did appear on the statue and condemned it, saying it was done Friday afternoon by someone not associated with the movement.

Sarah, another Penn student supporting the encampment, said organizers jumped into action when they discovered it.

“As soon as the vandalism occurred, we had students with umbrellas on one side covering it until it was power washed off — and the other side, we had a banner over it.”

They also refuted claims in the letter that members of the administration had attempted to meet with them.

“We are here to create this beautiful community. We are here because it’s important to have a space that wasn’t created by Penn to talk about Palestine,” Sarah said.

Jacob Malka, a Jewish student at Penn, says he hopes the encampment ends peacefully.

“Just because these people are out here and they have different views than us doesn’t mean that I believe they all deserve to be arrested. If they’re assaulting someone, yeah, if they’re breaking the law, yeah, but I don’t believe they deserve to be arrested just for camping here.”

Penn has not yet responded to KYW for comment about what it plans to do after its orders to disband were ignored.