Pa, NJ, Delaware campuses rise up against Gaza war – WHYY

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

Hundreds of students and faculty are getting arrested on college campuses nationwide for setting up encampments and protesting against the U.S.’s stance on the war in Gaza. In the Philadelphia and tri-state area, the protests have remained largely peaceful so far, but tensions are beginning to flare.

This week there was a large gathering involving students from several area universities and new encampments have sprouted in some of the universities and colleges in the tri-state area.

Here’s what’s going on at campuses around the region:

University of Pennsylvania

Students at Philadelphia’s Ivy League school have started an encampment at the College Greens in the center of the university just steps away from a statue of American revolutionary Benjamin Franklin. Penn was the final stop of the march across the city Thursday, which included students from Temple University and Drexel University. Later that evening, some students pitched tents, the number of which has now ballooned to dozens.

Late Friday night, the university’s interim president, J. Larry Jameson, ordered students to disband the encampment after a campus statue was vandalized. The student activists have said that they will stay put until their demands for the university to cut financial ties with Israel are met. The university already shut down the local chapter of Students Against the Occupation.

Penn has not fared well during the recent tension at universities related to the war in Gaza. Their last president, Liz Magill, resigned after a poorly received Congressional appearance.

Swarthmore University

Swarthmore University students have also set up an encampment occupying Parrish Lawn with a few dozen tents. Like at Penn, students there are also demanding that the university divest from Israel.

Unlike Penn, however, the university officials have said they respect the students’ right to assemble. “In keeping with the College’s long standing values around peaceful protest and free expression, we have not interfered with the encampment,” Vice President for Communications Andy Hirsch said in a statement to the student paper. In January, University President Val Smith emailed the community that “Peaceful protest and dissent are an important part of the College’s history.”

Princeton University

Students at Princeton started to set up an encampment despite warnings from the school’s Department of Safety. Two graduate students–Achinthya Sivalingam and Hassan Sayed–were arrested. They are facing disciplinary action and have been barred from campus. Hundreds of Princeton students had joined the nationwide walkouts in October.