University of Pennsylvania AAUP criticizes school’s protest policy amid pro-Palestine demonstrations
The University of Pennsylvania's AAUP chapter criticized the university’s protest and event policies, calling them overly restrictive and undemocratic.
They argue that the rules, including advance permit requirements, stifle student expression, particularly affecting pro-Palestine demonstrations.
The University of Pennsylvania’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) recently published a statement critiquing the university’s protest and events policy.
The statement, published on Oct. 30, critiques the university’s guidelines for being too strict and for too harshly cracking down on student demonstrations at the school.
“The unilateral and secretive decision-making that produced these policies is indicative of Penn’s unaccountable system of governance,” the University of Pennsylvania AAUP stated. “It underscores the need for faculty, staff, and students to work together to create legitimate, transparent, and democratic forms of decision-making. Those of us now subject to these rules had no part in creating them.”
“The requirement that we submit applications to the administration 48 hours to 2 weeks in advance to hold any kind of event makes the right to assemble and demonstrate conditional on prior administrative approval,” the statement continued. “This grants the administration unacceptable latitude to deny permits based on the substance of the views expressed.”
“Protest is frequently a response to urgent situations and rapidly developing events, and a two-week permit procedure quashes expression at the moment when it is often most necessary and effective,” the organization concluded.
The group specifically mentioned the pro-Palestine student demonstrations that have rocked elite institutions of higher learning since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel last year.
“They prohibit precisely the forms of nonviolent mobilization involved in last year’s antiwar protests—from projecting images on campus buildings to camping out overnight,” the University of Pennsylvania’s AAUP group alleged about the college’s protest policies. The group added that the rules “target antiwar protest and criticism of the Israeli government.”
The guidelines, which are accessible on the University of Pennsylvania’s website, do not mention the terms “Israel,” “Palestine,” or “war.”
Numerous incidents of anti-Semitic demonstrations have taken place at the University of Pennsylvania, including the vandalism of a statue of Benjamin Franklin on the school’s campus in September.
An anti-Israel student group at the University of Pennsylvania, Up Against the Occupation or (u)PAO, posted pictures of the statue online, describing it as a “a symbol of imperial violence and colonialism.”
“Penn, your hands are red,” the student group continued, condemning the school administration as being “complicit in the Palestinian genocide.”
In October, pro-Palestine demonstrators at the University of Pennsylvania vandalized signs at the school, defacing them by writing pro-Hamas slogans across them.
Campus Reform has contacted the University of Pennsylvania and the American Association of University Professors for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
