Police dismantle barricades at Penn encampment as protesters chant disapproval; police crackdown at Columbia, UCLA, Univ. of Wisconsin

The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war.

The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. It now goes to the Senate for a vote.

Action on the bill was just the latest reverberation in Congress from the protest movement that has swept university campuses. Republicans in Congress have denounced the protests and demanded action to stop them, thrusting university officials into the center of the charged political debate over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war was launched in October, after Hamas staged a deadly terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick attributed ongoing protests college across the nation to lacking leadership in higher education during a visit to the encampment at the University of Pennsylvania Wednesday.

"The authorities need to act decisively and with clarity and moral courage, and break up these cities and discipline the kids that are violating the rules of the campus," McCormick said.

McCormick added that university campuses like Penn should allow for "freedom of speech [and] freedom for peaceful protest," but not become a space that "intimidates Jewish students and other students so they can't learn."

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and District Attorney Larry Krasner stopped by the Penn encampment Wednesday afternoon to speak with protesters.

Gauthier, whose staff previously visited, stopped by to support students.

“They have a right to protest, they have a right to free speech and I'm hoping that Penn recognizes that and they also have the right to do that without penalty,” said Gauthier.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and District Attorney Larry Krasner stopped by the encampment around 2 p.m. to meet with encampment organizers and legal observers who debriefed them on an earlier incident where a man sprayed pesticide on some tents.

Gauthier complained earlier this week said she has been trying to talk to Penn interim President J. Larry Jameson about the encampment, but he won’t take her call.

“It’s important for all the stakeholders involved to communicate,” she said Sunday. “I’m reaching out to the president of Penn as an important stakeholder, an important leader of this community.”

Tuesday night’s negotiations with interim President J. Larry Jameson resulted in “a stalemate,” Philly Palestine Coalition member and encampment spokesperson Nneka Azuka told The Inquirer Wednesday morning.

Jameson told organizers that university administrators “would not negotiate unless the encampment was taken down,” Nneka said. “But the encampment is the only leverage we have.”

Azuka, who is from Germantown and has taken occasional classes at Penn since 2023, has been at the encampment since Tuesday. Azuka said the encampment has held strong at about 60 members since it began last week, even as news of mass arrests and militarized police activity at other universities broke last night.

Officers with Penn’s Department of Public Safety confirmed that a man wearing a green polo and black pants who sprayed tents in the College Green encampment with liquid from a pesticide can was not affiliated with the university.

Officers are testing the substance and asked encampment members to avoid the area where the liquid was sprayed, which include several tents at the front of the space.

“He presented himself as being affiliated with Penn facilities,” an organizer with the encampment who declined to be named over safety concerns told The Inquirer.

Eight Philadelphia Police Department and University of Pennsylvania officers — led by Michael Morrin, the deputy chief of investigations with Penn Police — began dismantling the barricades set up by the university to enclose the encampment around 12 p.m.

Encampment leaders attempted to start a “F— the police" chant as officers began, before starting a louder “Free Palestine” chant led by Philly Palestine Coalition members Nneka Azuka and Samantha Rise.

Encampment members began cheering and banging on empty Deer Park water jugs to commemorate making it seven days on College Green.

Police removed an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus Wednesday.

Campus police spokesperson Marc Lovicott said at least a dozen people have been arrested at the school as police removed tents erected by protesters.

Video from WISC-TV showed police with riot shields pushing against protesters and the protesters pushing back while chanting slogans.

Protesters were removed and tents in the former encampment had been removed.

No tents could be seen through fences from outside the campus and a photo from the college’s student newspaper showed the encampment area empty of tents.

At the base of the Hamilton Hall building, which was occupied by protesters the previous day, a few signs of the police action remained, including hand marks on the outside of a dusty window police had opened to get inside.

The University of Pennsylvania is violating its own guidelines for open expression by attempting to discipline students for participating in the pro-Palestinian encampment, which entered day seven Wednesday, a Penn faculty group said.

“It was wholly inappropriate for the Committee on Open Expression to distribute threats on behalf of the administration,” the Penn chapter of the American Association of University Professors wrote in a statement, referring to flyers that were passed out, saying students must furnish their Penn IDs when asked.

And asserting that students must show IDs is a violation, too, the group said.

It’s a quiet morning on day seven of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on College Green at the University of Pennsylvania. Dozens of tents are still pitched next to the statue of Benjamin Franklin.

Friday night, University President J. Larry Jameson issued an order for the protesters to vacate the grounds “immediately.” It’s unclear if — and when — that will happen.

Disciplinary hearings are scheduled on May 2nd for three Penn students who spoke to the media about participating in the encampment. The hearings surround violations of the Guidelines for Open Expression — the rules that govern free speech and protest on campus — such as pitching a tent, sleeping overnight, and hanging signs.

University of Pennsylvania officials said Tuesday that they were pursuing possible disciplinary action against pro-Palestinian protesters who have defied repeated orders to end their encampment, which showed every indication of extending to a seventh day on Wednesday.

“We have clearly communicated to the protesters in the encampment that they are in violation of the university’s policies,” Penn said in a statement, adding that any offenders, including faculty or staff, would be subject to “disciplinary processes.”

Thus far, the Penn protest has been absent of the turmoil and arrests that have occurred on other campuses, including Columbia and Princeton Universities, and no violent incidents or arrests have been reported at the West Philadelphia site since the tents were erected on Thursday.

Police burst into a building at Columbia University Tuesday night that pro-Palestinian protesters took over and broke up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school while inspiring others.

New York City officers entered Columbia’s campus after the university requested help, according to a statement released by a spokesperson. A tent encampment on the school’s grounds was cleared, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window. Protesters seized the hall at the Ivy League school about 20 hours earlier.

“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said. “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing. We have made it clear that the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules and the law.”

 Dueling groups of protesters clashed Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another.

After a couple of hours of scuffles between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields formed lines and slowly separated the groups. That appeared to quell the violence.

The clashes at UCLA took place around a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters, who erected barricades and plywood for protection — while counter-protesters tried to pull them down. Video showed fireworks exploding over and in the encampment. People threw chairs and at one point a group piled on a person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum.