
Swarthmore College Breaks Up Campus Protest Citing FBI Scrutiny
(Bloomberg) -- Swarthmore College said it called in police to break up a pro-Palestinian protest camp on its grounds after federal law enforcement pressed for an end to the demonstration.
Police arrested nine people on Saturday, including one of the private liberal arts school's students and a former student, Swarthmore President Val Smith said in a statement.
'In addition to placing the community at risk, the promotion of the protest on social media drew the attention of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, who urged us to bring the encampment to an end as quickly as possible,' Smith said.
It's the latest campus incident to draw scrutiny from President Donald Trump's administration, which has frozen or threatened federal funding for universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Cornell, that it views as promoting antisemitism and other policies it disagrees with. This week, Trump stepped up the pressure by threatening to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status.
At Swarthmore, a 161-year-old institution in the Philadelphia suburbs, the camp was organized by a pro-Palestinian student group that was suspended by the college and also attracted outside protesters, Smith said.
She said her decision to call in police, which she called 'terribly difficult,' was necessary to ensure safety on campus.
Swarthmore Borough police and the Delaware County Sheriff's Office didn't respond to requests for comment.
Two federal grants have been cut at Swarthmore, which is far less reliant on federal funding than large research universities, the college's campus newspaper reported in April. Federal funding makes up a small fraction of Swarthmore's $220 million operating budget for 2024-25, according to the report.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
First Published: 4 May 2025, 02:45 AM IST

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


NDTV
an hour ago
- NDTV
US Envoy Says He Does Not Think Palestinian State Is US Policy Goal: Report
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said he did not think that an independent Palestinian state remains a goal of US foreign policy, according to an interview with Bloomberg News released on Tuesday. "I don't think so," Huckabee said when asked if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, Bloomberg reported, Bloomberg reported. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is staunch pro-Israel conservative picked by President Donald Trump to be his envoy to Israel. "Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there's no room for it," Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won't happen "in our lifetime," he told the news agency. Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term. Huckabee suggested a piece of land could be carved out of a Muslim country rather than asking Israel to make room. "Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?" Huckabee said, using the biblical name the Israeli government favors for the West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live under occupation. The White House and US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Huckabee's remarks. An evangelical Christian, Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Trump has pursued strongly pro-Israel policies as president and his choice of Huckabee as ambassador signaled that they would continue.


The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
UN experts accuse Israel of 'extermination' in attacks on Gaza schools, religious sites
An independent United Nations commission said on Tuesday Israeli attacks on schools, religious and cultural sites in Gaza amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of seeking to exterminate Palestinians. "Israel has obliterated Gaza's education system and destroyed over half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip," the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a report. It accused Israeli forces of committing "war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities that caused civilian casualties. "In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination," the report said. It noted: "While the destruction of cultural property, including educational facilities, was not in itself a genocidal act, evidence of such conduct may nevertheless infer genocidal intent to destroy a protected group." Commission chair Navi Pillay said in a statement accompanying the report: "We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza." "Children in Gaza have lost their childhood," the senior South African judge said. "They are forced to worry about survival amid attacks, uncertainty, starvation and subhuman living conditions." The three-member commission said Israeli attacks "targeted religious sites that served as places of refuge, killing hundreds of people, including women and children". 'Genocide' warning The commission was set up by the UN to investigate violations of humanitarian and human rights law in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. In May, UN humanitarian relief chief Tom Fletcher urged the countries of the UN Security Council to take action "to prevent genocide" in Gaza. Israel has denied committing genocide. The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs demanded that Israel lift its aid blockade on Gaza, where the UN says the entire population of more than two million people is at risk of famine. "For those killed and those whose voices are silenced: what more evidence do you need now?" Fletcher said on May 14. "Will you act -- decisively -- to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?" The UN commission's report paid special attention to Gaza but also focused on Israeli attacks on civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories as a whole, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel itself. It said Israel had "done little" to prevent or prosecute Jewish settlers in the West Bank who "intentionally targeted educational facilities and students to terrorise (Palestinian) communities and force them to leave their homes". The report said Israeli authorities had intimidated and, in some cases, detained Israeli and Palestinian teachers and students who "expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza". Call to Israel The panel urged the Israeli government to stop attacking cultural, religious and education institutions, "immediately end its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory" and cease all settlement activity. It said the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should comply fully with provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice. The court has ordered Israel "to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide against people in Gaza" and allow humanitarian aid to get through. It also urged Hamas, the Islamist militant group that runs Gaza, "to cease using civilian objects for military purposes". Hamas fighters launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures. In response Israel launched an offensive during which the health ministry in Gaza says at least 54,880 people, the majority of them civilians, have been killed. The UN considers these figures reliable. The commission is to present its findings to the UN Commission on Human Rights on June 17.


Deccan Herald
an hour ago
- Deccan Herald
'Don't think a Palestinian state is a whole-hearted US policy goal anymore'
Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is staunch pro-Israel conservative picked by President Donald Trump to be his envoy to Israel.