Penn's interim president warns pro-Palestinian protesters that they must 'disband their encampment immediately'

As midnight approached, the pro-Israel counterdemonstration had mostly dispersed and the tensions caused by the Penn president’s vacate order earlier in the night had dissipated.

About a dozen police officers remained on patrol nearby, but demonstrators said they felt assured they would not be forced to leave just yet.

A few dozen Jewish and Israeli students at Penn assembled near the protest encampment around 10:45 p.m., where one student began setting up a projector facing the encampment to play footage of the Oct. 7 massacre.

(Later, after some technical difficulties, the pro-Israel group abandoned the idea to project the Hamas attack video, and instead played Israeli music instead on a portable speaker.)

Pro-Palestinian student activists plan to spend the night in tents on Penn’s campus, despite an order from the university’s interim president to immediately disband the day-old protest encampment, organizers said.

Police presence at the scene was light around 10 p.m. and there was no indication of an imminent sweep.

The interim president at the University of Pennsylvania issued a warning Friday night to the pro-Palestinian protesters on campus that they must "disband their encampment immediately" because of alleged legal and university police violations.

"The encampment itself violates the University’s facilities policies," J. Larry Jameson said in a letter to the Penn community.

The pro-Palestinian encampments at Philadelphia area campuses remained peaceful this week as tumult has roiled other schools.

Clashes with police and arrests have erupted at Emory University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Southern California, where next month’s main commencement ceremony has been canceled.

The political divide over the war in Gaza was starkly evident this week in Philadelphia as local officials spoke out about student demonstrations at University of Pennsylvania and other local campuses.

State Rep. Rick Krajewski, whose district includes Penn, as well as Philadelphia State Sen. Nikil Saval and State Rep. Tarik Khan, visited the Penn encampment on Thursday, according to a Daily Pennsylvanian report.

Hours after the encampment went up Thursday, a Penn spokesperson said the university would not tolerate protest or speech that violates the university’s policies, disrupts its business, or causes an “intimidating, hostile, or violent environment.”

Pro-Palestinian student organizers said they have a look-out network to make sure no one infiltrates the encampment to start trouble. They also spent the first day instructing protesters in the art of peaceful conflict resolution.

Few at the Penn encampment Friday expressed confidence that university leaders would immediately comply with the encampment’s demands to disclose its financial holdings, divest from corporations profiting from the war in Gaza, condemn Israel’s bombing of universities, and provide amnesty to students facing disciplinary measures for pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Beyond the requests for Penn leaders, Herndon said the camp’s goal is to provide a “safe space” for pro-Palestinian activists on campus, which include Jewish, Muslim, Arab and Israeli students.

A black-and-white keffiyeh draped the neck of Ben Franklin’s bronze statue on Friday morning.

Laying in his shadow on Penn’s campus, about 60 pro-Palestinian activists woke up inside tents. They had spent their first night in protest encampment against Penn over the war in Gaza.

Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said peaceful protest should be allowed on college campuses, but encampments should not.

“From my experience, the quicker you take these encampments down, the better,” said Ramsey, who served as Philadelphia’s police commissioner from 2008 to 2016 and whose company, 21CP Solutions, recently conducted a safety audit of Temple University’s campus. “They will only grow in size.”

Pennsylvania Rep. Rick Krajewski, whose district includes Penn, as well as Philadelphia state Sen. Nikil Saval and state Rep. Tarik Khan, visited the Penn encampment on Thursday, according to a Daily Pennsylvanian report.

Khan said he wanted to make sure students are “able to peacefully protest” and Saval condemned “universities that have called police on their students simply for expressing their voice in protest and right in assembling peacefully,” according to the report.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) responded to protests on university campuses in the state and across the nation by urging Republicans in Congress to pass an antisemitism bill he introduced two weeks ago.

The bill, backed by seven Democrats and seven Republicans, would establish a workable definition of antisemitism that the Department of Education’s Office’s of Civil Rights could use in investigations to determine whether there is a hostile environment on campus, which could result in a withholding of federal funding.Casey said Congress should increase funding for those investigations.

Haverford College students were occupying 15 tents on a central campus lawn Friday morning, an encampment that student organizers said was formed in solidarity with Gaza and in protest of the college's investments that benefit Israel's military campaign.

The protest's timing is also intended to disrupt the college's annual meeting of its board of managers, which takes place on campus this weekend, organizers said.

A handful of tents have gone up on Founder’s Green at Haverford College. It becomes the third college in our area with an encampment by pro-Palestinian protesters. 

Tents went up earlier this week at Swarthmore College and Thursday night at the University of Pennsylvania. 

University of Pennsylvania interim president J. Larry Jameson in an email to the Penn community Friday morning said the university is closely monitoring the encampment that went up Thursday, with an eye toward providing safety for both the Penn community and the protesters.

“Penn has and will continue to support the rights of our community members to protest peacefully and in keeping with University policy,” he wrote. “We will not stand by, however, if protected protest and speech deteriorate into words and actions that violate Penn’s policies, disrupt University business, or contribute to an intimidating or hostile environment on our campus.”

At a Thursday night rally, Pennsylvania Republican Senate nominee Dave McCormick disavowed the campus protests occurring in Pennsylvania and across the country.

At Towne House, a restaurant on Veterans Square in Media, in Delaware County, he repeatedly asked supporters if they could believe what was happening.

As campus unrest over Israel’s treatment of Gaza continued to rage at colleges across the country, hundreds of students and faculty in Philadelphia and Princeton took up the cause, staging encampments on area campuses, walking out of classes, and waging lively protests.

At the University of Pennsylvania, students erected about 10 tents on the College Green late Thursday afternoon, as Penn became the latest local campus with an encampment. The group at Penn described itself in a news release as a coalition of Penn students, staff, and faculty, along with other Philadelphia community members and students, and called the effort its “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

The students at Columbia University who inspired pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country dug in at their encampment for the 10th day Friday as administrators and police at campuses from California to Connecticut wrestled with how to address protests that have seen scuffles with police and hundreds of arrests.

Officials at Columbia and some other schools have been negotiating with student protesters who have rebuffed police and doubled down. Other schools have quickly turned to law enforcement to douse demonstrations before they can take hold.