Swarthmore students punished for Gaza protests

Swarthmore students protest the college administration’s efforts to discipline those who engaged in pro-Palestinian protests on campus, November 2024.

Swarthmore College issued sanctions on March 6 against 15 students for participating in anti-genocide activism for Palestinians in Gaza. Their peaceful demonstrations of solidarity with Gaza occurred between October 2023 and March 2024. The college in Media, Pennsylvania, is located outside of Philadelphia.

The most extreme sanctions are aimed against one graduating senior who was suspended, nine who received one-semester probation and one who received a two-semester probation. The second-semester senior set to graduate was suspended on the charge of “assault” for the use of a megaphone indoors. This is the first suspension of its kind in the U.S. There is no basis for this charge in either Pennsylvania state law or the Swarthmore College Code of Conduct. (ActionNetwork.org, March 6)

The press release issued by the Swarthmore Palestine Coalition notes: “The harshest sanctions were directed at Arab and Muslim students of color. The majority of students targeted are first-generation, low-income students of color. Some now face homelessness and unemployment as a direct result of these sanctions, and two students are losing their campus jobs.”

These sanctions were issued just days after Trump tweeted: “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/sent back to the country from which they came. American Students will permanently be expelled. NO MASKS.”

The administration at Swarthmore, long considered a “liberal” college because of its Quaker legacy, is following in the footsteps of Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and other Ivy League institutions in caving to pressure from the right-wing Trump administration.

The Trump administration already has canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia asserting the school “failed to handle complaints of [alleged] antisemitism as protests mounted on the campus last spring.”

Swarthmore was among 60 colleges threatened with sanctions by the U.S. Department of Education earlier this month amid ongoing investigations into “antisemitic” activity on their campuses. A petition demanding the reversal of the sanctions on students at Swarthmore can be signed at: tinyurl.com/2vdc8n5v.