Swarthmore disciplines students involved in protests against war in Gaza

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Earlier this month, as students at Swarthmore College prepared to leave on their Spring break, 14 of them received a parting gift: disciplinary action for their involvement in Gaza-related protests.

Several students were given warnings while others were given more serious penalties, such as probation and even one suspension. After months of hearings by the college, students said they expected some punishment.

“But we were surprised because they were reaching so far to paint students as violent and get us suspended,” one of the students said.

WHYY News spoke to several of the students; most asked not to be named because of fears they may be targeted by outside groups. Another student also told WHYY News that they were advised by the college not to talk about the process.

The protests in question occurred between October 2023 and March 2024. The college issued charges against the students in May. It’s unclear how many students they investigated overall, though students put that number at least two dozen.

The student activists expressed disappointment with the school which, they point out, was founded by Quakers, a Christian denomination known for their focus on pacifism and social justice. Swarthmore’s history of activism includes sit-ins during the Civil Rights era.

Some called the punishments “unprecedented” for the school.

“Swarthmore College has a long history of student activism,” said an activist. “They make themselves seem so centered towards activism and seem to really pride itself on. That’s what drew a lot of students towards the institution in the first place, including myself.”

In a statement to WHYY News, Swarthmore said that the college “values and supports individuals’ rights to express their views and engage in peaceful protest and dissent.”

“But those rights do not extend so far as to infringe on the ability of other students, faculty, and staff members to fully engage in the life of the campus, nor do they give license for protesters to disrupt the essential operations of the College,” the statement read.

Students who talked to WHYY News pointed out that there have been many protests, even in recent years, for which none of the activists were suspended or put on probation. One activist compared their actions to students at other institutions, such as Columbia University in New York, where students occupied buildings.

“We didn’t have any type of major escalation like you’ve seen at other colleges,” they said. “And that’s why we were so surprised is because they were reaching farther than even other schools had reached.”

Coincidentally, Columbia announced they expelled students who were involved in that protest last week. Swarthmore students were also spared arrests, unlike those at other colleges and universities around the country that cracked down on encampments last spring. None of the punishments Swarthmore handed out appear to be related to their encampment.

The Swarthmore student who received the strictest punishment was “charged” with “assault” by the university for using a bullhorn close to college staff. According to the college, that damaged their hearing. Commercial bullhorn megaphones typically range up to 112 decibels, which is enough to damage a person’s hearing, but usually requires prolonged exposure and close proximity. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires hearing protection for workers exposed to 110 decibels for at least half an hour a day.

Students called the claim “ridiculous,” noting that megaphones and bullhorns are a regular part of legal protests on and off campuses. One of the students noted that the term “assault” is a loaded legal term.

“Other students have used megaphones for other protest movements” without any consequences, said Dart MacVeagh, a senior who received a warning for their role in the protests.

MacVeagh opted to give their name in order to support other students who were worried about potential reprisals, especially foreign students who have been targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. MacVeagh said that the person who was suspended is a low-income, first-generation student who was effectively made homeless by the suspension, which means they had to leave the campus.

“I think many people truly [are] kind of appalled at the college for how little they seem to care for the situation they’re placing their students in,” MacVeagh said.

School officials say no sanctions have been implemented against the students as their appeals process is underway. They say the school will continue to support students through the process.

The activists, however, countered that, telling WHYY that the suspended student did not receive any information about support if they are suspended and was told they will have to leave campus immediately if the suspension was upheld.

Kim Roosevelt, a constitutional law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said that assault “usually requires putting someone in fear of an imminent, unlawful touching” and “just speaking through a bullhorn doesn’t fit that,” but that the school can redefine it for their own purposes.

He called that a “common tactic” to curtail speech.

“That’s what they’re doing here,” Roosevelt said. “They’re saying this isn’t about the content of the speech. They say it’s because it fits into the category of assault, though it’s not obvious to me how it does fit into the category of assault.”

Swarthmore updated its code of conduct for students following the ’23-’24 school year, but school officials say the rules included in the previous version of the handbook were applied.

WHYY News received copies of both the old and new codes for comparison. Sections related to protest and free expression all appear to have been changed.

For example, the new code specifically prohibits “encampments” and “bullhorns” and prohibits “demonstrations and other forms of protests” from being held in classrooms, offices, libraries, dining halls, residence hall rooms and lecture halls.

The code also added “The College places great value on freedom of expression.”

“It is absurd that they’re changed to what they are because at this point there is so much ambiguity in the code that they can effectively claim to support free speech while not, in effect, supporting free speech or rather by selecting which free speech that they give permission to,” MacVeagh said.

Swarthmore officials say the student handbook is “updated routinely every year” and that the students were “first notified of the alleged charges in May 2024, well before the handbook was updated and the current administration took office.”

The new code does make a number of changes that appear to be regular updates, including the deletion of a section on COVID and an update to the harassment section to include “doxing” and bullying through social media.

Even though the charges were issued months before President Donald Trump won the election, some of the students believe that Swarthmore is capitulating to a forceful Trump administration that is investigating the school — among many others — for “antisemitism,” which the White House sees the protests as being part of.

“The stated values of the college are secondary to whatever political pressure they may be under at the moment,” MacVeagh said. “Which is to say that they’re not very important at all.”

That resonates with Roosevelt, who said that the time honored American tradition of college protest is under assault.

“I think this is a very troubling time for free speech, and I think that the government is showing hostility towards free speech,” he said. “And I think that private institutions like universities are reacting to that because they’re subject to governmental pressure. There are supposed to be limits on the kinds of conditions they can put on private institutions, but it doesn’t look as though the current administration cares very much about those limits.”

The college administration contends that it’s still a safe place to practice free expression, however.

“These incidents represent only a fraction of the dozens of protests, vigils, and other activities that took place during that time period since the start of the war in the Middle East,” they said in the statement. “In other words, the overwhelming number of students who participated in the vast majority of protest-related activities did so freely and without incident, underscoring Swarthmore’s support for individuals’ rights to express their views and engage in peaceful protest and dissent.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been edited to clarify that only one student was suspended by the school and for clarity about how students would be disciplined under Swarthmore’s code of conduct that existed at the time of the protests. It’s also been updated to correct references to Swarthmore as a college, not a university.