On June 6, the Penn administration shared new temporary open expression guidelines related to campus events and demonstrations with the University community. 

The Temporary Standards and Procedures for Campus Events and Demonstrations came after the 2023-24 school year saw an uptick in political protests and unrest on campus, including the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which lasted 16 days. The guidelines were a response to repeated requests for updates on the University’s policies related to campus demonstrations, as well as the request for “increased clarity” that was a “priority recommendation” in the final reports from both the University Task Force on Antisemitism and the Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community.

The new guidelines have been “sourced from numerous existing policies and guidelines” and apply to “[a]ny member of the Penn community or Penn-affiliated organization wishing to schedule an event, such as a demonstration, protest, rally, or guest speaker on campus.”

The Daily Pennsylvanian spoke with several campus leaders and local experts about the new guidelines — which explicitly ban encampments, among other divisive rulings — and compiled the community’s reactions, which range from approval to outright disgust.

Opposing opinions

Political science professor Anne Norton views the guidelines as restricting and hypocritical, claiming in a written statement to the DP that while the administration says the new regulations are to protect the safety and property of students, “it was the actions of the Penn Police that seriously injured two students (at least) and damaged much of their property.”

“The central administration has declared that we may have freedom of speech and assembly in the places they designate, on the days they permit, at the hours they permit and the volume they allow, with people they approve and signs posted in the manner and for the time they permit,” Norton wrote. “I have never known a university with so draconian a regime of repression.”

Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine advocated for students’ right to protest in a recent statement posted on Instagram, arguing that student protests have been “integral in instituting academic fields of study and forcing the University to meet the intellectual and sociocultural demands of its students and faculty.” 

The group referenced four previous examples of movements at Penn that led to the creation of the Penn Women’s Center and the Pan-Asian American Community House, among other University institutions, in the statement. 

“Penn’s own history shows us that student protest has been one of the significant levers of change at Penn,” the statement read. “The latest [guidelines] attempt to constrain student protest such that free expression is permitted, but only without ‘disruption’ and without ‘impediment’ to Penn’s ‘core missions’ or ‘University functions.’ But … disruption has been a necessary agent of change to achieve resources that should be part of Penn’s core missions of education, research, and healthcare to begin with.”

Faculty Senate member displeased with lack of Senate involvement

Faculty Senate member and assistant professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine Andrew Vaughan — speaking in his personal capacity to the DP — said that the administration’s lack of communication with the Faculty Senate about the encampment and Temporary Guidelines was “very disappointing.”

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Vaughan said that the Faculty Senate urged Provost John Jackson “not to use armed police to disband the encampment … under any circumstances, as long as the encampment remained peaceful” in an emergency meeting when the encampment began. 

Vaughan added that he was “extremely disappointed” that police presence was “the ultimate outcome several weeks later.”

Vaughan expressed frustration that Interim Penn President Larry Jameson did not consult the Faculty Senate prior to communicating with the Penn community, saying that the Faculty Senate “could have been useful in approaching negotiations.”

“We — as a body — were largely, I think, ignored throughout this process,” Vaughan said. “In principle, Penn claims to embrace and value shared governance — meaning that faculty have a direct role in these sorts of things — and … there was very little evidence of any real shared governance.”

A “pseudo committee” within the Faculty Senate provided feedback on an initial draft of the new guidelines on April 24. However, the Faculty Senate was not further consulted on the guidelines, which left the Faculty Senate as “caught completely off guard as everybody else” when they were released, Vaughan said. 

“[Penn] seem[s] much more interested in engaging with their legal team and with their own little tight-knit advisors,” Vaughan said. “It would be a win for everybody involved if [President Jameson] and the provost’s office would step back and say, ‘How do we bring back the Senate executives into these conversations and into these decision-making procedures?’”

A step in the right direction

Perelman School of Medicine professor Benjamin Abella suggested that the Temporary Guidelines are a step in the right direction for the University.

“I think we have gone way too far towards prioritizing free speech over all else,” Abella told the DP. “This is not the public square or the streets of Philadelphia. This is within the walls of a university … that has a responsibility to safety and to collegiality among students and staff.”

He went on to express that the guidelines might actually be a “gift” to protesters as they urge demonstrations to be more “productive and more useful,” and he encouraged Penn’s administration to focus on building relationships.

“It is sad to see that we have a University with a proud tradition of tolerance and collegiality that has devolved in this manner,” he said.

Abella recently announced that he will leave Penn Medicine to join the Mount Sinai Health System as System Chair of Emergency Medicine. 

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Considering the timing and details of the Temporary Guidelines

University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Kermit Roosevelt told the DP that clarifying the rules governing expression on campus is a good thing, but he raised concerns about the scheduling requirements for protests, the prohibition of advocacy of violence, and the ban on intimidation of Penn-affiliated individuals or groups in the guidelines.

“Two weeks for the prominent locations seems excessive, since many protests are reactions to breaking events,” he said. “I think procedural requirements like that create a substantial possibility of discrimination against disfavored viewpoints.”

Roosevelt added that the prohibition of advocacy of violence would ban students from demonstrating in support of Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression, hostage rescue missions, or American armed forces’ involvement in a conflict.

“I can imagine the congressional hearing about why Penn threatens to expel students who support our troops,” he said. 

In a statement to the DP, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression expressed concerns about the timing of the policies — saying that it calls the guidelines’ neutrality into question — and the prohibition of the advocacy of violence, citing that the First Amendment protects advocacy of violence as long as it does not escalate into immediate action.

FIRE also published a Newsdesk article on June 11 titled “Did Penn just squash free speech rights to avoid more pro-Palestinian protests?” that echoes these sentiments and highlights a conflict between Penn’s right to enforce reasonable restrictions for protests and their duty to remain neutral.

“With its new rules, Penn demonstrates it took all the wrong lessons from the past year,” the article reads. “Other institutions would do well to steer clear of Penn’s example.” 

“Without robust freedom of expression and the ability to explore all ideas on campus, how can Penn deliver on the President’s urgent call at this past commencement to ‘keep reinventing, learning, and engaging?’” FIRE added to the DP.

In a written statement to the DP, Annenberg School for Communication professor Carolyn Marvin advocated for a space for the Penn community to respond to the results of the review of the current Guidelines on Open Expression and said that the Temporary Guidelines “tell us to expect a drastic weakening of existing protections.”

“The Guidelines must be substantially strengthened so the community can exercise its proper function of shared governance when speech restrictions are on the table,” she wrote. “A venerable Penn tradition of generous and effective protection for open expression will otherwise have been unfortunately and permanently lost.”

Civil Rights Act concerns

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Penn Carey Law professor of philosophy Claire Finkelstein — speaking to the DP in her personal capacity — said that Penn has done an “excellent” job with the guidelines, saying they contain necessary “clarity and specificity” and “chart a path for the University to meet its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act while preserving the rights of political dissent.”

Numerous accusations of Civil Rights Act violations have been made both from and against Penn throughout the last few months of political unrest on campus.

In an email to the Penn community on April 26 — one day after the start of the encampment — Jameson wrote that alleged harassment by encampment participants violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

On April 28, a joint Instagram post from Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine, the Freedom School for Palestine, and Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine — as well as pro-Palestinian groups from Temple and Drexel — presented “serious concerns” about Penn’s possible violations of Title VI, alleging that the University ordered a Seder to disband on College Green while allowing neighboring services to occur immediately adjacent to it. They also argued that the University committed another violation by warning encampment participants about collecting Penn IDs but refusing to provide a “clear policy” as to how they would identify individuals. 

In December 2023, two Penn students — 2024 College graduate Eyal Yakoby and rising College sophomore Jordan Davis — filed a lawsuit against the University alleging an insufficient response to campus antisemitism, a “pervasively hostile educational environment,” and that Penn has violated Title VI. The University has moved to dismiss the motion twice, most recently arguing that the lawsuit’s challenges are “premature.”

In addition, a letter informing Penn of the start of a investigation by the United States House of Representatives stated that Congress would “not stand idly by and allow an environment hostile to Jewish students to persist,” further alleging that Penn violated Title VI.

Looking at other universities

Executive MPA student at the Fels Institute of Government and Committee on Open Expression member Raheem Williams told the DP that the Temporary Guidelines do little to address the real problem the University faces and that Penn must “pivot towards stern institutional neutrality,” much like Harvard University.

Harvard announced on May 28 — two weeks after Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine peacefully concluded their encampment on Harvard Yard — that they will not “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.” 

The announcement was the result of the efforts of Harvard’s faculty-led “Institutional Voice Working Group.”

“So long as [Penn] is expected to act as a moral arbiter on all the pressing social issues of the day, this stuff will never end,” Williams said. “Penn needs to exit the culture wars and set clear expectations for the University community.”

Free speech concerns from experts

Solomon Furious Worlds, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania focused on policing, search and seizure issues, protest rights, free speech rights, and obtaining government records, also spoke with the DP and offered their thoughts on behalf of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

Worlds recalled Penn’s open expression policy being enacted in 1968 as a “direct response” to students protesting the Vietnam War.

“These guidelines were created as a means to stop discrimination towards student protesters, no matter what their viewpoint was,” they said. “Now, the University seems to be going in the opposite direction. When students are protesting something that seems fairly clear that [administrators] don't like, they have decided to change the guidelines.”

Worlds added that the new policies did not seem to come about in a “democratic way” and seemed to “go against the very principles” of the original guidelines. 

“It’s clear from the release of these Temporary Guidelines and from Penn’s actions that they have a bias against pro-Palestine protests,” they said. “There have been other encampments, there have been other protest actions, there have been other students supporting other causes using the same tactics, and Penn did not demonize … those students with the same voracity.” 

Worlds also emphasized that while the federal Constitution may not apply to Penn in the same way it would to a public university, the ACLU of Pennsylvania is “still against any institution changing their policy to narrow protections for free speech and demonstration.”

Summer News Editor Ethan Young and Staff Reporters Jasmine Ni and Tanisha Agrawal contributed reporting.