These UPenn Students Got Arrested Over a Homecoming Protest

Rasheda Alexander, an activist who moved out of homelessness into the UC Townhomes 15 years ago, details the myriad changes that have taken place in the area during her time there, emphasizing Penn’s role in replacing community spaces with institutional buildings. This list includes the Charles R. Drew Elementary School, which her daughter attended, located where the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center now stands. Says Alexander, “To see high schools and early-childhood centers be removed from our community, and the University of Penn buying them up to make parking lots to make student living, to make science centers and things of that nature, it was very disheartening.” 

The ongoing activism by residents in the Save the UC Townhomes Coalition and Fossil Free Penn students have aided in securing meetings between residents and high-ranking Penn administrators, such as senior executive vice president Craig Carnaroli, Alexander adds. 

Another outcome of the protests has been an array of disciplinary consequences. After grad student and Fossil Free Penn coordinator Ari Bortman participated in an August protest led by UC Townhomes residents who disrupted Penn’s convocation ceremony for incoming freshmen, he received an email threatening “disciplinary probation for the fall 2022 semester”; ultimately, Bortman was able to negotiate and avoid disciplinary consequences. 

Bortman and senior Emma Glasser were also threatened with disciplinary consequences in April 2022, related to the group’s first encampment attempt. At 2 a.m. on the first night of the encampment, they say, they were awoken by a group of administrators and Penn Police shining flashlights into their tents, with the administrators telling them that the encampment wasn’t safe; they say they were then asked for IDs. 

Though the students received emails informing them that their action was possibly in violation of university guidelines, they managed to avoid disciplinary action. “It was clear that what we were doing was really pushing them the wrong way,” Glasser says. “And to us, that was a sign that what we were doing was along the right direction.”

After homecoming, however, there were legal and university-specific consequences. The arrested students were subject to court-mandated community service stemming from the arrests and have been subject to a disciplinary probation period for the spring 2023 semester. Additionally, the Penn Band has imposed a yearlong suspension on Mahmud and Francis for their participation in the homecoming protest.

“I’m a first-generation, low-income student, so I can’t really afford to play an instrument other than this,” Mahmud says. “I feel like I got one strike, and that was the one strike I had.” The whole experience has made Mahmud feel less connected to the part of the Penn student body that doesn’t support Fossil Free Penn’s actions and says she sometimes feels a “target on [her] back” walking to class. 

For these activists, belonging to an Ivy League institution that has contributed to gentrification while also fighting that institution can be an intimidating experience. Ultimately, tho, it’s necessary. “I can only reconcile being part of the university by leveraging all of that power that we gain, to try and create this change,” Bortman says. “Because if we can change the way that Penn operates, the way that Penn interacts with the world and the West Philadelphia community, that will have an immense impact on so many lives.”

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