student organizing – Page 3 – Penn Disorientation Guide

On-Campus Organizations

There are countless organizations at Penn engaging in community-building and striving to hold the University accountable for the harm it perpetuates. We encourage you to get involved!

Defanging Radicals

Penn continuously undermines its own students and community members to preserve its institutional power. Here are some of their strategies, so you can label and successfully oppose them.

How to Organize Protests at Penn

Student and community-led protests have been an integral part of Penn’s history, and they will continue to be for decades. However, when planning a protest, it’s important to be mindful of the physical and emotional wellbeing of all participants, as well as set a concrete set of realistic goals.

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.

The Erosion of Asian American Studies

Six student protestors stand in front of the Ben Franklin statue on College Green with other protestors demanding more resources for the ASAM program. Photo courtesy of The Daily Pennsylvanian

AM Program was the result of countless and constant efforts on part of students and faculty, and its existence holds an important place not only for academic enrichment but for students who fall under the AA+NHPI label at Penn. While it is important to celebrate the program’s tenacity, it is equally important to understand the program’s past, specifically Penn’s consistent institutional disregard of the program and its students and faculty.

Cultural Houses at Penn: A Decades-long Deadlock

Photo of the ARCH Building and a portion of Locust Walk in front of it on a cloudy day. Currently, the three major race-based cultural centers are housed in the ARCH building's basement. Photo courtesy of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

For those who are not already aware, the University of Pennsylvania is a predominantly-white institution. This detail is overlooked by some who are aware of Penn’s strong history of establishing some of the nation’s first Cultural Resource Centers (CRCs) on college campuses. However, many remain unaware of the history behind these spaces and the war that their student leaders have continuously waged in their journey to advocate for students of color at this institutions.