Students at Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges are preparing for final exams, but some Palestinian supporters are also spending the final days of the semester organizing anti-war demonstrations in their schools’ administration buildings.
More than 50 Swarthmore students were occupying the building that houses college President Valerie Smith’s office Thursday afternoon. At Haverford College — another liberal arts school that joins Swarthmore in a union with Bryn Mawr — about 30 students spread out throughout the lobby of Founders Hall on Friday while a large banner reading “Cease Fire Now” hung above the building’s entrance.
The protests come after students called on campus leaders to speak out against ongoing Israeli strikes in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack. Gaza health officials estimate that since the outbreak of war, more than 17,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict.
Palestinian-allied student groups at both schools estimate that more than 100 students have attended each sit-in this week. Both groups say they intend to stay until university administrators meet their demands.
At Swarthmore University, students urged administrators to issue a statement condemning “the Israeli aggression against Gaza” and to drop disciplinary warnings against pro-Palestinian student organizers.
The students also called on the school to divest portions of its $2.7 billion endowment from companies they believe participate in the military-industrial complex, and to remove hummus made by Sabra, a company partly owned by an Israeli group linked to Israel. Al-Askari is one of the student cafes.
At Haverford University — where many on campus are still reeling after their Palestinian-born classmate, Kenan Abdel Hamid, was injured in a November shooting in Vermont — students called on the administration to support a ceasefire in Gaza and offer academic leniency to those affected on campus. University conflict.
“Seeing the community that has formed here has made me feel incredibly supported as a Palestinian student,” said Rajoud, a 19-year-old Swarthmore student who requested that her last name be removed due to security concerns. What is happening in the region “affects me directly – this is my identity, and these are my people.”
Colleges across the Philadelphia area have become hotbeds of political debate in the wake of a surprise October Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
In November, the US Department of Education announced it was investigating allegations of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia at a number of universities, including the University of Pennsylvania and Lafayette College in Easton.
At Penn State, several anti-Semitic incidents since the outbreak of war have prompted calls from donors for administrators to do more to address the concerns of Jewish students. While University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has announced a plan to combat anti-Semitism, her comments before a congressional hearing on the university’s free speech policies this week led to calls for her resignation.
This backfire has left other higher education institutions pondering how their leaders should handle the contentious campus Environments.
In Swarthmore, about 30 student organizations supported the pro-Palestinian demonstration, according to members of the Swarthmore Palestinian Coalition. Protesters entered the building on Monday, installing mattresses and sleeping bags and hanging banners depicting Palestinians killed during the Israeli campaign.
Some coalition members, including Rajod, said some Muslim and Arab students protesting Israel felt targeted by threats of disciplinary action by campus administrators over their participation in demonstrations earlier this semester.
A Swarthmore spokesman said the college has long valued freedom of expression and the freedom to protest peacefully.
“Since the recent violence in the Middle East began, community members have organized multiple vigils, protests and other demonstrations on campus, doing so without interference, and in some cases with support from the college,” Alissa said. Giardinelli, assistant vice president for communications.
Giardinelli said that prior to the sit-in, several students, including those who support a state for the Palestinians and those who support Israel, received letters warning about their participation in other activities that might violate college conduct. These students received warnings after the school spoke to them and tried to discourage them from committing further violations, according to Giardinelli.
“Many of these events lived in the spirit of the college’s belief in peaceful dissent,” Giardinelli said of previous protests. “However, we must maintain our commitment to creating an environment free of intimidation, harassment, and discrimination. We will hold accountable anyone found violating our policies.”
She added that students concerned about discrimination can report their concerns to the college’s Bias Response Team.
Meanwhile, at Haverford, some students like junior Ellie Esterowitz are organizing the show Haverford College students demonstrate for peace in Founders Hall — while still processing the trauma of her boyfriend Abdul Hamid being shot over the Thanksgiving holiday.
The authorities are still investigating whether the shooting, during which two other students of Palestinian origin were injured, was racially motivated.
“It’s hard to even break that kind of suffering and pain,” Estrowitz said. “Words seem a bit inadequate.”
The students described feeling like their administration ignored their concerns, and were upset that leaders of the school — a historically Quaker institution with a rich history of anti-war demonstrations — did not publicly call for a ceasefire.
“We want to end the violence,” said Ellie Baron, a 20-year-old student. “This is not a radical request in many ways.”
Haverford College spokesman Chris Mills said the college supports “students’ rights to free expression and peaceful protest as we work together to advance our shared educational goals at Haverford.”
The “nuances and implications” associated with the topics students discuss are the subject of “many ongoing conversations,” Mills said. In a letter dated October 12, College President Wendy E. Raymond said she participated in a peace circle where attendees mourned “more destruction that will happen to Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
Students at both schools said campus security did not remove students from their sites. One Haverford student suggested that students continue to protest next semester, if necessary.
In Swarthmore’s Parrish Hall, student Gavin Perez Green, 22, sat on a mattress as some students, carrying backpacks, maneuvered through the crowd of students. Some of those protesting were hunched over their laptops, hard at work before the holiday break.
Perez Green, a first-generation college student, feared that potential disciplinary action could hurt his standing at the school, and noted that the sit-in had upended typical college life at a critical point in the semester.
However, Perez-Green said, “I would certainly call this a much-needed disruption.”