All change is historically placed. Therefore, all organizing must be historically informed. Throughout the rest of the guide, we try to give in depth looks at various issues with Penn and in Philadelphia. In this, we try to give a broad overview and timeline of what organizing and agitation efforts have taken place over the past year or so. To do this properly, we must start with the immediate fallout of the violent police sweep of the Penn’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
June 6, 2024 – Open Expression Rule Changes
The administration revised their open expression guidelines. The open expression guidelines set the bounds of what all Penn affiliates can say and how they can say it on campus. They also describe the basic consequences for violating their rules. In this (temporary) revision, they mandated that all organizations must get express permission from administration to appear anywhere on campus. Flyering, tabling, much less protesting were clamped down on without this assent. Additionally, Penn reserved the right to remove anyone unable to produce a PennID from campus.
These restrictions, paired with the lingering physical and mental toll of the encampment on many organizers, placed a chilling effect on activism felt throughout the rest of the year. Administration and the police were emboldened to take more aggressive action while students felt evermore precarious in their position.
June 6, 2024 – Petition Delivered in Towne Building
Eight protesters entered the Penn Engineering Towne building and presented to dean Vijay Kumar (whose lab also makes drones for Israel’s genocide) a petition demanding divestment and eviction of Ghost Robotics from their location in the Pennovation Building. Ghost robotics develops and manufactures autonomous robot dogs used anywhere from “the battlefield to the oil field,” according to their website. The petition of 3,000+ signatures calls out the dogs’ use in both Palestine and the U.S./Mexico border, including with automatic guns attached.
However, the petition was refused and the protesters were detained and issued trespass violations by UPenn Police Department. Six of the protesters were also issued citations.
September 2024 – Daily Announcements
PAO held daily announcements for several weeks in September, giving updates of news from Palestine at 10 am on Locust Walk. The announcements were discontinued due to increasing harassment and pressure from administration and police.
September 27, 2024 – Vigil
Students held a vigil mourning the martyrs in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. To that point, there had been 41,000 reported deaths in Gaza, and in the previous few days, Israel had both launched operation Northern Arrows, killing over 800, and set off pager explosions. While grieving this human tragedy, the mourners were surrounded by police, bearing zip-tie handcuffs, and were forced to leave College Green. The mourners, primarily students, were deemed trespassers for not officially registering the event with the administration who, four months prior, had ordered the arrest of students and demolition of their Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
During the vigil’s dispersal, police tailed a hijabi student for multiple blocks back to the student’s house.
August 27, 2024 – Penn Violates RA Labor Contract
Even though in 2023, Penn’s Resident Advisors, vital housing staff, won a new contract. However, Penn sought retaliatory punishment against and violated their contract with the Resident Assistants union. Penn decreased the financial aid award of 56 RAs by $6,000, began limiting (Graduate)RAs ability to have additional jobs, and demanded (G)RAs track their hours in Workday– something not discussed in negotiations.
October 7, 2024 – Shut Down Ghost Robotics
On the anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood, the Philadelphia Students for Justice in Palestine Coalition organized a rally to remember the Palestinian martyrs, honor the resistance, and protest one year of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The rally specifically targeted UPenn’s Ghost Robotics, a corporation, housed by Pennovation, which manufactures robotic military dogs that have been deployed by the IOF in Gaza and tested by DHS along the U.S. Mexico border.
Indigenous People’s Day Palestine Solidarity Vigil – October 14, 2024
Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine and their partners organized a vigil and rally on Indigenous People’s Day, honoring the interconnected struggles for Indigenous and Palestinian rights and mourning the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian martyrs killed by Israel.
October 18, 2024 – UPenn Police Raid Pro-Palestine Students’ Home
On Friday, October 18th at 6am, 12 Penn Police officers and one Philadelphia police officer raided the home of pro-Palestinian student organizers. They threatened to break down the door with a battering ram, pointed a gun in a neighbor’s face, then stormed the house in full tactical gear. They pointed rifles and handguns at students’ heads as they exited their rooms with their hands raised. Officers refused to show a warrant or provide their names and badge numbers. No arrests were made, and no charges were ever given. This was a deeply disturbing and violent escalation of Penn’s suppression of Palestinian activism.
Jan 22, 2025 – Ghost Robotics claims to leave Pennovation
Ghost Robotics announced that it had signed a lease in a new, larger location in Philadelphia and so would be leaving Pennovation. However, according to sources who work inside Pennovation, they have not left the building and continue active research with the dogs. Nevertheless, whether or not they left Pennovation, the campaign will continue until Ghost Robotics is not only out of Penn, but out of Philly.
December 17, 2024 – GETUP-UAW demands good faith
The graduate student worker union, GETUP-UAW (Graduate Employees Together at the University of Pennsylvania – United Auto Workers) began negotiating a new contract with Penn October. However, by December, they had grown frustrated with administration’s slow response times. In three meetings, tentative agreement had only been reached on one out of twenty proposed articles, and most of those articles had not even received a response. Thus, GET-UP delivered a petition with 1,300 signatures, calling for administration to bargain in good faith and in a timely manner.
January 12, 2025 – Save Chinatown Coalition Victory
This winter, the Save Chinatown Coalition celebrated the downfall of the 76ers plan to build a new sports arena bordering Chinatown. The proposed arena, which was shamefully approved by City Council, would have displaced small businesses and low income residents and ultimately destroyed Chinatown’s identity and community. Fortunately, due in part to the incredible efforts of two and a half years of community organizing, the Sixers scrapped their plans to build the arena in Chinatown. This victory is a continuation of Chinatown’s long history of successful resistance against development and displacement.
January 2025 – Penn Libraries United begins bargaining
Penn Libraries United, a union of workers consisting of not only librarians, but also “archivists, application developers, curators, communications workers, and more”, began bargaining for a new contract with administration.
January 21, 2025
President Donald J. Trump inaugurated.
March 20, 2025 – Don’t Obey in Advance
A coalition of Penn Unions (graduate students, RAs, librarians, museum workers, medical interns and residents) held a protest, demanding Penn does not “obey in advance” to the Trump administration’s attacks on University principles and funding. They pushed to “uphold research, jobs, sanctuary, DEIA, and the rights of all members of our community.” This followed both February cuts to a major income stream, indirect costs of NIH grants, for labs and the University and an anti-DEI attack on Penn and many other universities.
March 25, 2025 – Funding Cuts
Administration releases a statement announcing that the Trump administration had slashed $175 million in grants and sent stop-work orders to labs across Penn. This came in retaliation for the “participation of a transgender athlete on the women’s swimming team in 2022.” Penn does nothing else at this time except say that it has updated its sports policy in accordance with the NCAA’s new transphobic policy.
March 21, 2025 – Wake Up Larry!
At seven am, about fifty activists rallied on the lawn of Penn President Larry J. Jameson’s private residence in Wynnewood, PA, demanding justice for Palestine and protections for the non-citizen community. Protestors chanted as they posted over 200 copies of a letter to Jameson around the residence, calling for him to “disclose Penn’s investments, divest from Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, and defend student activists and non-citizens from terrorism by the federal government”. This was followed by a reading of Mahmoud Khalil’s recently published “Letter From a Palestinian Political Prisoner”. The activists emphasized that their presence on Jameson’s lawn was necessitated by his violent suppression and silencing of pro-Palestine students and faculty.
March-May, 2025 – Bake Sale!
PAO held bake sales throughout the spring semester to raise money for mutual aid in Palestine. The funds were split between individuals, families, and mutual aid organizations.
April 11, 2025 – Vigil
For the second time that school year, students attempted to hold a vigil in mourning of the Palestinian martyrs. During the program, attendees received white roses with the names of martyrs attached, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim prayers were recited, and names of martyrs were read.
Supposed to be held next to the LOVE statue, the interfaith vigil had to move to a neighboring lawn because Penn barricaded the statue off before the event. Administration attempted to interrupt and disturb the vigil, but it was able to be completed without more escalation. Again, Penn’s agitation stems from the refusal to officially register the event with them. The students viewpoint is this: Penn is our campus as much as it is administration’s and we ought not be made to ask permission to mourn.
April 24, 2025 – GETUP-UAW demands Discrimination and Harassment Protections
The graduate student worker union delivers their second petition of the school year demanding that Penn provides strong protections against discrimination and harassment. This 2000+ signature petition comes in the wake of vicious attacks on immigrants, LGBTQ+ people – in particular trans people – and Penn’s toothless responses, and the petition directly asks for protections for these affected groups.
April 30-May 3, 2025 – Swarthmore Encampment
Organizers at Swarthmore University, another University in the Philadelphia suburbs, established their own Encampment, April 30th, 2025, on Trotter Lawn, which they christened Hossam Shabbat Liberated Zone. They demanded Swarthmore disclose and divest from all companies profiting off of Israel’s occupation of historic Palestine and genocide of its people. Specifically, they demanded Swarthmore end collaboration with Cisco, “a company that supports the security infrastructure of the Zionist settler-colonial state”, and to publicly condemn Israel and its genocide. Additionally, they implored Swarthmore to defend its community by refusing cooperation with ICE, condemn Trump’s attacks on immigrants, and subsidize legal aid for community members.
Throughout its duration, a number of Penn students visited, supported, and demonstrated solidarity with the Swarthmore organizers in their cause as they had done with our encampment the previous year. So, although not a Penn-specific event, it would be wrong to not include it, for our struggles and fights are intertwined and support each other.
However, Swarthmore retaliated, “interim suspending” nine students without any due process that suspensions are supposed to have, sweeping the encampment, and arresting 30+ people on May 3rd.
July 1, 2025 – Penn issues Transphobic Apology
The University of Pennsylvania, in a shameful compromise of values, apologized for allowing a transgender athlete to compete in NCAA events, scrubbed her records, and adopted a “biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ pursuant to Title IX and consistent with President Trump’s Executive Orders.” Thus, Penn recouped the $175 million in funding the Trump administration had taken.
As the Daily Pennsylvanian points out in an editorial, this act explicitly violates the University’s motto, “leges sine moribus vanae”, laws without morals are useless. Although not the first time they have evidently violated this, this act caused a great stir to the Penn community.
July 18, 2025 – RAPUP Wins Union
The Research Associates and Postdoctoral workers held an election for and, in a landslide 703 – 38 vote, won a union and their right to collectively bargain for better wages, treatment, and benefits. Their union, RAPUP, next will begin bargaining with Penn administration.
July 30, 2025 – Penn Museum Workers United Win Contract
Penn Museum workers ratified a new contract that featured, among other things, a bevy of pay increases. This contract followed a breakdown of negotiations that led to the union unanimously authorizing a strike. This, in addition to a protests and pickets, placed enough pressure on Penn to agree to a fair deal.
Summer, 2025 – Day & Zimmermann out of Philly Campaign
Over the summer, Penn Against the Occupation, as part of the city-wide Philadelphia Students for Justice in Palestine coalition (phlSJP) began an extended campaign to evict Day & Zimmermann from Philadelphia, a major U.S. weapons manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia (1500 Spring Garden). Day & Zimmermann produces, among other things, fragmented grenades, missile warheads, and munitions. Its weapons are used by the Israeli Occupation Forces in their genocide of the Palestinian people, killing many including six year old Hind Rajab.
This campaign has already seen multiple rallies and thirteen weeks of consistent Tuesday, 6:30am, morning noise disruptions of their headquarters, shattering business as usual and letting all employees know that they are complicit in the production of genocide and are thereby not welcome in Philadelphia. Only in its infancy, this campaign and weekly Tuesday morning and now Thursday evening (4:30pm) disruptions will continue throughout the school year and until D&Z leave Philadelphia. Show up!
August 25, 2025 – The DG (what you’re reading!).
Student activists published the annual Penn Disorientation Guide and hosted a week of educational and community building events in collaboration with Penn and Philadelphia organizations, including Penn Against the Occupation (PAO), Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), Penn for Immigrant Rights (PIR), Koreans for Decolonization, several student unions, Penn Chavurah, and Philly SJP.
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