Uncategorized – Page 3 – Penn Disorientation Guide

The Ongoing Fight for RA Unionization at Penn

by an organizer with United RAs at Penn On March 14, 2023, the residential advisors (RAs) of Penn’s college houses filed for unionization, a historic first for student workers. The unionization effort was an inevitable response to Penn’s relentless and shameless mistreatment of its workers. We intend to use our collective power to create aContinue reading “The Ongoing Fight for RA Unionization at Penn”

Tying it All Together

Antiwar demonstrators following the Penn marching band during Hey Day in 1972. Students rallied to protest the U.S.'s involvement in the Vietnam War and Penn's role in funding the war effort. In a black and white photo, students with signs and a megaphone confront band members playing their instruments. Photo courtesy of Penn Archives.

Hopefully, now at the end of this guide, you have a clearer understanding of Penn as an institution. You’ve seen how Penn’s foundation was dependent upon displacing indigenous peoples and using enslaved labor, how it exploits its workers today, how it fails to meet the needs of its students, how it intensifies racial inequalities, and how it deprives us all of an environmentally sound future.

Editors’ Letter

Penn students protest the construction of Meyerson Hall on campus. These protests were one of the many free speech cases that the University has dealt with in its history. Other instances include the “water buffalo” incident, race-based protests and, more recently, Occupy protests. Photo courtesy of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Welcome to the Disorientation Guide (DG), where you get to read about all the things Penn doesn’t want to tell you.

A Recent History of Organizing at Penn

Less than a week after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Penn students walked in solidarity across campus to show solidarity between the University community and Ukraine. A poster reads "Slava Ukraine Heroem Slava" among other phrases. Photo Courtesy The Daily Pennsylvanian

Over the past few years, the Penn community has rallied in response to injustice on and off campus. Every movement deserves to be discussed, but here are some of the most notable examples.