Since 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, students and faculty have actively critiqued his policies on Penn's campus, in the larger Philadelphia community, and even on social media.
A year later, here are some top moments that document the political activism of members of the Penn community.
Almost 50,000 people showed up to the Women's March on Philadelphia on Jan. 21, 2017, one day after Trump's inauguration. This number well exceeded the original projections of around 20,000 people.
Beginning at Logan Square and marching down the Ben Franklin Parkway towards the Philadelphia Art Museum, marchers peacefully chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, women's right are the way to go!"
Following Trump's temporary ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, demonstrators flocked to Philadelphia International Airport on Jan. 29, 2017.
The terminal was packed with protestors, Penn students included.
”This is not a spectator sport. You’re either in it for oppressed minorities, or you’re out,” one woman said at the microphone.
At a Faculty Senate protest on College Green Jan. 30, 2017, Penn President Amy Gutmann broke her silence on Trump, calling his executive order "injurious to our work and inimical to our values."
This speech marked the first time that Gutmann had publicly mentioned Trump by name since his campaign started.
Students, faculty, and staff came together two days later at the LOVE statue near College Green for an interfaith protest organized jointly by VPUL, the Spiritual & Religious Life Center, and PRISM.
Participants stood silently with white flowers in hand, showing solidarity for those affected by the travel ban.
Tamika Mallory, one of the national co-chairs of the Women's March on Washington, spoke at an event in the Rodin College House rooftop lounge on March 26, 2017. Mallory's efforts drew over one million protestors to Washington, D.C., though she criticized some marchers for being there "for themselves."
Former Vice President and Penn professor Joe Biden visited Irvine Auditorium on March 30, 2017 for another sold-out event.
“Every other president has talked in terms of 'American values', because 'American values' is what we’ve been propagating,” he said. “What worries me most is we have a president now who's the first president I have been aware of who has never used the phrase 'American values.'”
After Trump announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, a group of students joined together to link arms in solidarity on College Green on Sept. 13.
The award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi Coates paid a visit to Irvine Auditorium on Nov. 1, 2017 as part of a tour for his new book, "We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy."
"Trump is professionally stupid," he said to hundreds of students in the audience. “If Donald Trump was black he wouldn’t have made it off the block."
Participating in a National Day of Action for a Clean Dream Act, approximately two dozen Penn students gathered on College Green on Nov. 9, 2017 for a walkout organized by Penn for Immigrant Rights. The protests were in response to Trump's reversal of DACA.
At the end of the walkout, students participated in a call-and-response chant, “It is our duty to fight for freedom, it is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains."
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