Reinstate Our Peers NOW

Valerie Smith, Stephanie Ives, Brooke Vick, Erin Kaplan, Rob Goldberg, Kathleen Howard, and Tiffany Thompson

In an effort to silence pro-Palestinian protest on campus, Swarthmore College has interim suspended nine students. These students were suspended without evidence or due process for their alleged participation in the Hossam Shabat Liberated Zone. Two were among those brutally arrested by 30+ police officers dispatched by President Valerie Smith. These students and seven other encampment members present at the time were repeatedly assaulted under the watchful supervision of Stephanie Ives, Anthony Coschignano, and Colin Quinn.
Swarthmore's complete and utter lack of consideration for the safety of students speaking out against genocidal violence is appalling. As their friends and peers, we ask for your support in unequivocally condemning the administration's actions and demand their immediate reinstatement.
Petition by
Gravatar
Swarthmore ReverseTheSuspension
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

To: Valerie Smith, Stephanie Ives, Brooke Vick, Erin Kaplan, Rob Goldberg, Kathleen Howard, and Tiffany Thompson
From: [Your Name]

I am writing to demand the immediate reinstatement of the 9 suspended students. These students were “positively identified” without material evidence or due process. Two were among those brutally arrested and violently assaulted by 30+ police officers dispatched by admin to the Hossam Shabat Liberated Zone.

We are utterly horrified by this unprecedented abuse of institutional power and the administration’s utter lack of consideration for the safety and security of its students.

The Hossam Shabat Liberated Zone was established to demand full disclosure of institutional investments and complete divestment from the slaughter of the Palestinian people. And, with the rising number non-citizen pro-Palestinian protestors being deported or unlawfully detained, we further demanded Swarthmore to commit to not working with ICE, DHS, or any other federal agency that contradicts our status as a sanctuary campus.

Rather than address and divest from Swarthmore complicity in slaughter of 52,600+ Palestinians by the Zionist regime since October 7, 2023 and provide protections for the most vulnerable among us who continue to speak out against this genocide, the school immediately resorted to extreme disciplinary punishment and escalated to brutal arrests, endangering the most vulnerable among us.

Four of the nine students come from low-income backgrounds and attend Swarthmore on full financial aid. The majority of the suspended students are BIPOC and/or Muslim, following an extremely disturbing pattern of racialized discrimination in the administration's profiling, targeting, and unhousing of individual student protestors.

The students have been removed from all access to Swarthmore’s resources, including food, housing, and income. They have been removed all means of institutional support without evidence or due process and threatened with further consequences if they do not comply. They are expected to secure housing and food on their own as they await disciplinary hearings—a process that was drawn out for multiple months in the 25 cases against pro-Palestinian protestors the college oversaw saw this past year.

In solidarity with our peers, we demand their immediate reinstatement. We demand that all charges be dropped against every member of the Hossam Shabat Liberated Zone. We demand amnesty for all student protestors.

Swarthmore and its administrators must take actionable accountability for their actions.