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The University of Pennsylvania issued new, temporary protest guidelines on Thursday, explicitly banning encampments. This is the first time such a prohibition has been made at the Ivy League institution, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The stopgap regulations represent the first step of a larger effort to revise the university’s long-standing “open expression” guidelines, which have not been amended since 1989. Penn officials have appointed a task force that will review the policy over the course of the next academic year and recommend more permanent changes.
“To ensure the safety of the Penn community and to protect the health and property of individuals, encampments and overnight demonstrations are not permitted in any University location, regardless of space (indoor or outdoor),” the new guidelines state. “Unauthorized overnight activities will be considered trespassing and addressed.”
The guidelines also for the first time specifically prohibit light projections on buildings without permission from university officials
The decision comes on the heels of one of the largest, most controversial series of campus protests in decades, as students at colleges and universities across the country took a stance on the war between Israel and Hamas. Students at Columbia University inadvertently launched a wave of overnight protests after they established an encampment on the campus lawn and were forcefully removed by city law enforcement in mid-April.
Tensions first flared at Penn back in September, when the Palestine Writes literary festival was held on campus. Former Penn president Liz Magill then resigned in December after Congress grilled her about antisemitic incidents on campus. Penn’s pro-Palestinian encampment was erected on April 24 and dismantled by university and city police 16 days later. Thirty-three protesters were arrested in the process.
