Please sign this petition to aid students who have been discriminated against for their political beliefs and have had their freedom of expression violated and demand that;

1. Disciplinary cases against students for the study-in be dismissed

2. Further efforts to chill pro-Palestinian speech be stopped and investigated by the university

On February 22, five students at the University of Pennsylvania received letters from the Center for Community Standards and Accountability claiming that they had violated the Open Expression Guidelines and they would be put in a disciplinary case for their participation in a "study-in" held by the Freedom School for Palestine. At this silent and nondisruptive study-in on February 19, groups of students gathered in the Moelis Reading Room in Van Pelt library to work on midterms, papers, and take-home exams, with the goal of drawing attention to educide – a term used to describe Israel's targeting of academic institutions as well as our Palestinian peers and other Palestinian intellectual figures.

Around 11 a.m. Penn Police entered the library, attempting to isolate and intimidate students and demanding that study-in participants remove all posters from the walls, to which participants complied with. Plain clothes police officers with body cameras remained in the library for the duration of the study-in. Around 7 p.m., administrator and representative of the Vice Provost of University Life, Tamara King, informed students that their presence in the Reading Room and photos of martyred Palestinian peers and colleagues laying on the tables around where people were doing work, were in violation of University guidelines. Accordingly, participants were told to vacate the Reading Room or be placed in a disciplinary case. Again, the students complied and went to another area in the library where they could continue studying. Being closely followed by King on the library's security cameras, the students were told they were fully banned from the library for the remainder of the day. Study-in participants promptly left the building.

Despite adhering to each and every one of the demands, students were still unjustly referred for disciplinary cases. As hundreds of students flowed in and out of the library throughout the day, these five students were explicitly selected due to their previous affiliation with pro-Palestinian organizing on campus. The University's efforts to intimidate student activists demonstrate that Penn is complicit in genocide in Palestine. Not only does the Penn administration's action not have any basis or foundational evidence backing it, it's clear that Penn is attempting to chill pro-Palestinian activism and censor speech that its billionaire donors disapprove of. This blatant abuse of power by Penn administrators, including Vice Provost of University Life Karu Kozuma and Senior Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs Tamara Greenfield King, should not and will not go unnoticed. Together, we will hold the University of Pennsylvania accountable.