Pro-Palestinian activists hosted another study-in and rally at Penn on Sunday, aiming to raise awareness of the Israel-Hamas war's damage to Gaza's education system.
About 20 demonstrators affiliated with Freedom School of Palestine took part in the study-in from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Van Pelt Library, and a rally in front of the library followed after. The demonstration is the second study-in hosted by the Freedom School over the past week.
A request for comment was left with a University spokesperson. Last week, five of the demonstrators present were contacted by the Center for Community Standards and Accountability, according to a statement from the Freedom School.
The protestors gathered at a table in the Moelis Reading Room at 12 p.m. wearing keffiyehs — Palestinian scarves that are symbols of freedom and independence for Palestine.
At 4 p.m., the protestors filed out of the library and held up posters that stated “Study-in for Palestine” and “Educide: The Mass Destruction of Education” while organizers spoke to a crowd of about 30 people. The rally lasted for about 20 minutes.
College junior and Freedom School participant Selena Rosario began the rally by describing what she said were Israel’s past and present attacks on educational infrastructure and cultural heritage in Gaza. Rosario condemned Penn’s “silence and complicity in scholasticide,” a term that refers to the destruction of Gaza's educational system by Israel.
College junior Sonya Stacia criticized the disciplinary actions Penn took against protestors at a study-in staged on Feb. 18, when about 15 protestors were "forcefully shutdown" by University Life representatives for hanging pro-Palestinian posters in the library. Penn representatives first asked the protestors to leave the reading room and then to leave the library entirely.
Rosario also said the Freedom School remains unaware of how the protestors were identified by CSA, as their IDs had not been collected after the study-in.
“It again goes back to our very existence and faces being politicized and connected to political action,” Rosario said. “And while we are organizers and student activists, us inherently existing in a space is not a reason to punish us, especially if that punishment is conditional to whether or not it agrees with the University's political agenda.”
Stacia also cited a “history of peaceful student protests” on campus that led to the creation of places like the Women's Center and the LGBT Center.
She then led the crowd in a chant of “Shame!” following the names of numerous University Life representatives, including Senior Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs Tamara Greenfield King, who was responsible for forcing the demonstrators to leave Van Pelt last Sunday.
“While students here at Penn plan for midterms and plan their spring break, the processes of the Israeli military have been systematically destroying the education system of Gaza, tearing university students and academics’ lives apart through bombing and starvation tactics,” Stacia said to the crowd.
Stacia also spoke of the University's context in the global sphere.
“Rather than showing solidarity with our fellow academics in Gaza, the University of Pennsylvania has used its prestigious position in the global community to support Israel and its unjust occupation of Palestine, tamping down on any sources of critical thought or even basic human empathy for those being martyred right now in Gaza,” she added.
College sophomore Iman Tednga was the final speaker. He shared the stories of Palestinian scholars — including Sufyan Tayeh and Al-Shaima Saidam — who died in Israeli attacks over the past few months. Tednga concluded the rally by reading a poem called, “If I Must Die” by Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian writer and professor who died in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza on Dec. 7, 2023.
Rosario added that the second study-in was not meant to be a continuation or add-on to last week’s protest, but rather to send a message to the University that the Freedom School is a “group of students whose existence cannot be politicized.”
“Today, what we were trying to accomplish was to come out here, host a rally, and explain what ‘educide’ is in depth and represent the number of students [at Penn] who are not interested in being complicit with Penn in condoning genocide and scholasticide in Palestine,” she said.
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