Ending the Encampment on Drexel's Campus

Dear Drexel Colleagues and Students,

Early this morning, Drexel Public Safety officers, with critical assistance from the Philadelphia Police Department, removed the unauthorized pro-Palestinian encampment on Korman Quad after protestors complied with police warnings to disperse peacefully. The encampment had been set up this past Saturday evening in violation of our policies and local trespassing ordinances and under the auspices of the Drexel Palestine Coalition, a group that is not a registered University organization. Based on analyses of all available information, a considerable majority of encamped protestors were not affiliated with Drexel.

This was a difficult decision, but protesters left us no other choice but to take action to clear the encampment ourselves. Situated at the heart of Drexel’s busiest campus corridor and in close proximity to critical learning spaces, the encampment had threatened the safety of our community and severely disrupted student life activities and normal academic and administrative operations as we enter the last weeks before final exams. Over the past five days, protesters ignored our daily calls to disband the encampment; subjected passersby to discriminatory and inflammatory rhetoric; and verbally abused our Public Safety officers repeatedly. Protestors also targeted our Jewish community with repugnant, antisemitic “demands,” such as calling for the elimination of Drexel’s Hillel chapter and Chabad and for the University to cut ties with a Jewish faculty member and a Jewish member of a Drexel advisory board. If you want to see this for yourself, their demands can be viewed on the Drexel Palestine Coalition Instagram account.

I expect to receive criticism from those who will argue that deploying police officers to end a protest encampment is both a disproportionate response to a nonviolent campus protest and a violation of the rights of individuals to express their views freely and to protest. I respectfully disagree. In fact, the University has the responsibility to all our stakeholders and the authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of campus protests. In this instance, some Drexel students joined with individuals not affiliated with Drexel to trespass onto University property on Saturday to stage unauthorized encampment demonstrations. These demonstrations interfered with normal teaching and research activities, singled out members of our community for harassment and intimidation, and forced us to severely restrict access to the central part of Drexel’s campus. Moreover, abusive or discriminatory language, to which individual members of our community were subjected, is not protected speech. Our response, informed by public safety expertise and experience with intractable situations such as this, offered the most effective way to clear the encampment in the safest manner for our community. I am thankful that there were no altercations, no need to use police force, and no arrests.

I also understand the frustration and anger of many others, including parents, who now question why we did not move more quickly to remove the encampment. Because Drexel students were involved, we tried communicating with them in hopes of persuading them to end their participation in the encampment rather than risk arrest. Thankfully, we avoided that scenario. We also went to great lengths to ensure that our plans for dismantling the encampment met the City of Philadelphia’s criteria for enlisting the assistance of Philadelphia police officers.

As I shared in yesterday’s message to the community, we are returning today to full in-person operations and activities, but with restricted single-point access via Drexel ID into all of our buildings. However, the Korman Center will remain closed until further notice. Once again, please remember to bring your ID if you wish to enter a campus building; you will not be able to enter without your ID.

I fervently hoped that we would not be compelled to call on our police officers to disband a campus protest. Now that we have, we all have much to process and much to learn. There will be opportunities for our community to discuss and debate complicated issues such as the war in Gaza. But we must never permit disruptive encampments and demonstrations to threaten our safety or limit our ability to pursue our academic mission for the benefit of our students and our community.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who has worked almost around the clock to peacefully resolve this situation. I am grateful to the City of Philadelphia and Philadelphia Police Department for their assistance, as well as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for their guidance and support. And I am most grateful to Chief Singleton and our Public Safety officers for their exceptional professionalism in keeping our campus safe under extremely stressful conditions.

Sincerely,

John Fry
President