Latest news with #TheUniversityofPennsylvania
CBS News
08-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
3 University of Pennsylvania students have had their visas revoked, school says
The University of Pennsylvania said three students studying in the U.S. on school-sponsored visas had their immigration status terminated by the Department of Homeland Security. In a statement , the Philadelphia college said the students had Penn-sponsored visas and received a notification from DHS that their immigration status was deactivated in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS. Penn said it doesn't appear that the terminations are connected to on-campus protests in 2024 but are related to what it called "immigrations status violations." Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the government had the right to revoke hundreds of visas for students who participated in campus protests. In 2024, protests were organized at colleges across the country in response to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. A lawsuit arguing the detention of noncitizen students and faculty violates the First Amendment was filed in March by labor unions representing university professors. "This is an extremely unsettling time for international students and scholars at Penn and in the United States," Penn said. "Know that we will make every effort to provide you with timely guidance about recent immigration policy changes." Earlier this month, a Temple University student had her visa revoked by the Department of State. According to President John Fry, the school informed the student of their change in visa status, and the student opted to return home. Penn added that while school officials are "aware of reports of encounters with ICE agents locally in Philadelphia and additional visa revocations," it doesn't appear that ICE agents were on campus in connection with the three students who had their visas terminated.
Fox News
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Ivy league school lays off lecturer who drew antisemitic cartoons of Jews drinking Gazan blood
The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) has laid off a lecturer who produced alleged antisemitic political cartoons, including drawings of Israelis drinking the blood of Gazans. Cartoonist Dwayne Booth, who goes by the name Mr. Fish, joined UPenn's Annenberg School for Communication in 2015. He published numerous cartoons in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and subsequent war in Gaza that depicted anti-Israel messages and used Holocaust imagery to accuse Israel of genocide. One of Booth's cartoons, which he drew for columns penned by former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges, featured a group of Zionists drinking blood out of wineglasses labeled "Gaza," while another shows Jewish prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp holding up signs displaying "Israel assassins" and "Stop the Holocaust in Gaza." Other cartoons show Netanyahu in a butcher's smock covered in blood, a Nazi flag with a Jewish star in the place of a swastika and a gun with an Israeli flag held up to an incubated baby's head. UPenn's president, Larry Jameson, condemned Booth's cartoons as "reprehensible" at the time, but vowed that the university would continue to employ the artist, citing their "bedrock commitment" to free speech. The school's decision to part ways with the controversial political cartoonist came as the Trump administration announced it is freezing $175 million in federal funds to the university over its policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in women's sports. Booth told Fox News Digital that his dismissal had nothing to do with his cartoons, and that all part-time adjuncts and lecturers were let go due to budget issues that arose from President Donald Trump's funding freeze. "My dismissal… had nothing to do with the false accusations from last year that the artwork I produce as a professional editorial cartoonist outside the classroom were antisemitic merely because they were critical of Israel. All part-time adjuncts and lecturers had their courses canceled for the fall semester due to budgetary issues stemming from the attacks by the Trump administration on higher education," he said. "I was informed that the reason for the termination was budgetary, which I think is the same reason they gave to Jesus just before they crucified him," Booth said in a statement on his Patreon page. Booth, who describes himself as a "political cartoonist, cultural contrarian and mastur-crafter of exquisite d--k jokes," slammed UPenn and other colleges for being "way too complicit" with Republicans who he claims are targeting academics for being critical of Israel. "In fact, the University of Pennsylvania has spent the last year and a half willfully handing over the private emails of professors and students to congressional committees tasked with crushing open debate, honest inquiry, and dissent on the campus and then targeting those who refuse to cooperate with these draconian censorship tactics by threatening them with suspension, expulsion, or dismissal," he wrote. UPenn did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
