Nice. They wanted Penn to buy more West Philly and then they would what... protest Penn buying more of West Philly next???

Someone should check the university student handbook before complaining they're being targeted.

If there actual rules against protesting then maybe they should first work to get the rules removed before actual protesting.

it's almost like activism is built on civil disobedience and there are repercussions for pushing back against the system.

but that would imply the save UC townhomes people have a cohesive agenda and were orienting their fight towards a legitimate power structure that's holding down the development of low income housing

The First Amendment is just words. There is no actual freedom of speech.

freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences

The approach needs to be measured. I generally think it's generally bad to officially punish people for protesting in nonviolent, non-disruptive-to-education ways. The campus tents are a blight but even at a private school where the First Amendment doesn't totally apply, the principles of free expression are important. But the ones who ruined convocation for others I have less sympathy for because they were disruptive.

That said, what are they even protesting anymore? Penn doesn't own the UC Townhomes. What are they going to do about it? Also, as much as I agree that we need green energy, we're in the middle of a gas price crisis so "community control not oil and coal" runs into the fact that people will choose low gas prices over pie-in-the-sky undergrad seminar ideas. Penn already does a ton for the environment. Finally, between the "Gentrification Kills" banner (probably misinformation) and the newly erected Palestine flag, it seems to be turning into a radical tent city that has lost sight of any productive aims.

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in some ways though it's better to have students making that mistake while they're in college and to have penn deal with them and not have police intervening and bring real world consequences into these students lives.

nothing wrong with student pursuing activism and organizing around helping low income residents. the problem is, as you point out, the entities organizing around this issue have no idea what they're doing and are drawing impressionable partners into their orbit, pushing them towards unproductive actions and behavior

"Students like Bortman and Elsakhawi say that the university staff has used multiple tactics to 'harass' and intimidate students."

"Protesters have posted on social media that at least one university official was holding a decibel meter at a recent rally. Students believe the official was using the meter to see if the rally exceeded 85 decibels, which Penn deems an “unreasonable noise level” at which a rally can potentially be shut down."

That's not really harassment, is it? Measuring the decibel level to see if exceeds the allowed limits? These kids would have been awful in the Civil Right marches in the '60s when dogs and fire hoses were used, and people went to prison for their convictions.

If you're lucky, you get four years of your life to do whatever you want without having real adult responsibilities, and this how you choose to spend this precious time.

What a waste.

first amendment only applies so the government can't suppress your freedom to speech. Private companies can suppress. Upenn is not even a state university (like Penn State) hard to argue that the government is suppressing their freedom of speech.

As per usual with these types of protesters, the participants are unable to focus on the correct parties involved, or stay even focused on the issue they're protesting.

Which is why politically they hold no power. They can't correctly identify the problem, nor stay focused on a particular issue, and will drift along with whatever the issue of the day is.

Penn students about to learn that an Ivy league university will only put up with so much of thier childish bullshit before it smacks them down.

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Privileged Ivy League students and savior complexes. Name a more iconic duo.

Lot of assumptions in this statement.

I was a student there last year in one of the graduate school programs. My classmates loved to talk about all of the atrocities Penn committed, and how fucked up the school is.

However, many of these things happened before any of us were enrolled (my program was an accelerated 1 year program). You could have easily seen that this was happening if you simply did the research before even applying. While I agree that Penn has done some awful things, so still pay however much it is for you to attend their program literally adds to the problem, because you’re funding them to continue to do what they do.

My classmates loved to talk shit about Penn, but were still sitting in the classrooms with me, making sure to mention that they attended Penn during job interviews, and attended our graduation.

I agree that protesting in a non-destructive, non-disruptive way should be welcomed, but on the same line, these students, in addition to my graduating class, all need to take accountability for their own actions, as it essentially supported Penn.

They also want to abolish Penn police (many of whom are black btw) ….

Some time ago there was someone complaining on the penn subreddit about all the service staff being largely black despite the demographics of west philly being largely black. And had they not been black they would’ve probably complained about hiring white people and not giving jobs to POC. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t

Oh my god: your latter point is why I stopped attending so many Philly rallies. That, and the end of the Trump administration reduced the need for them.

The number of people who just could not stay on message is why I despair for the Left’s efficacy ever.

They also want to abolish penn police..

They have like a laundry list of ridiculous demands though. Penn buying the UC townhouses property is going to cost MILLIONS, and they’re definitely not getting that out of their endowment - and it’ll only make it harder for middle class people to afford going to Penn.

Hey remember literally yesterday I said that part of the reason the disruptive, chaotic, and criminal actions of Penn students rarely make the news is because the university uses part of their 20 billion dollar endowment as a PR mechanism to control the narrative and it got downvoted to hell?

Anyway this is what it looks like and you’re seeing it now because it’s in the university’s best interest.

“Hey if you work really hard and get really lucky you can get into a place like Penn and use that power to stand up for people like us”

does that

“No not like that!”

what are you talking about? these protests on upenn's campus were covered extensively by the inquirer and other media. they even made national news

https://www.inquirer.com/news/university-city-townhomes-penn-protest-gentrification-20220830.html

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/12/2128340/-Housing-activists-and-residents-fight-gentrification-in-West-Philadelphia

Anyway this is what it looks like and you’re seeing it now because it’s in the university’s best interest.

the inquirer article is from august! the daily kos one is a repost that was published earlier this month. every article written about the townhome encampment mentions penn's connection to the issue (by way of the protestors rhetoric). penn's erasure of information that you're saying exists, doesn't.

This also feels like a missed opportunity to me. The world in general could use more good troublemakers, not fewer.

It’s not at all surprising to me that the students here did kind of a dumbass, ham fisted job of things. Youth led movements make a lot of dumb mistakes and struggle to handle complex issues, even the ones that bring about big changes for the better (see, say, SNCC).

So that doesn’t bother me - it’s not fair to expect activism to be the only activity on earth that doesn’t come with a learning curve.

Penn should be thinking about what it can do to better train up these students, not just to get them to knock it off.

Same, though I largely stopped during the end of the Bush administration, start of the Obama administration when I became disillusioned with the Occupy movement.

Trying to organize on the left is like trying to herd cats. It's next to impossible, and if you get them into one place they'll just start attacking each other.

Unprivileged Ivy league students from Philly and how sick they are of these students' BS.

This has a lot to do with movements on the Left being generally antagonistic toward hierarchy - it’s been a feature since the late 1950s.

It’s helpful in that it allows organizations to be more flexible, allows more grassroots participation, is more democratic, and enables local chapters to adapt to local needs.

But, yes, from a stability, consistency, and messaging standpoint, it’s an absolute nightmare.

IMO, historically, it’s the center left moderates that used hierarchical organization that generally got shit done, but it’s the wild-ass chaos factories of the further left that held them accountable and kept them from compromising more than they already did. Both were and are valuable.

Penn has more money, in endowment - sitting there making more money, than the GDP of like 80 countries. They have more money at their disposable than more than 10x the GDP of almost every state.

They have a literally unimaginable amount of wealth AND INFLUENCE.

If kids are doing something that will hurt the university - or the donations to it - they use that influence to make it go away. Their interests are aligned.

If kids are doing something antithetical to Penn’s financial or reputational interest, the university will weaponize that money, power, and influence against them.

We don’t see the first piece. by design.

We do see the second piece. by design.

I am saying, watch how this entity operates over the next few days and weeks and months and it will give you a glimpse into how this operation works.

Do they stay on top of every single story all the time? No. Neither do most countries.

So either 1) the protest’s media narrative genuinely got the jump on them or more likely 2) they let the news cover these protests without any interference because it would eventually be in their best interest.

I genuinely don’t understand why so many people in this sub will cape so hard to protect institutions that will refuse to protect you.

step 1. penn has a lot of money

step 2. ?????

step 3. penn is CENSORING our media DON'T YOU SEE??

i don't think people are defending penn when they say your claims don't hold water. you're not filling in the blanks about how or to what end penn is doing what you say they're doing. you've forgotten to include the actual information that backs up your claim. just having a large endowment isn't evidence of anything.

A lot of people don't understand image. I get it: You have the right to say catchy but inaccurate slogans, make broad statements, dye yourself different colors, tattoo your face, and have 7 piercings per ear. I think that's really a cool look, tbh.

But, if you do that, you should not be representing a movement that needs to appeal to people in the center of the political spectrum. The left needs to learn political messaging, and we need to present ourselves like we want to have a seat at the table.

It sucks that we get judged by our looks and not our ideas, but that's the world we live in.

Because I’m not allowed discuss details of cases involving students without risking future employment or my professional license. I gave examples of when I was a student - which I have no limitations on - yesterday and that comment got downvoted too.

You know what, I got mine. I have the fancy papers with the Penn emblems. I get invited to the to elitist dinners at the Union League and the exclusive cocktail hours at the Art Museum. I get asked to sit in rooms at city hall where policy is hammered out.

And I get to continue doing that because of the letters after my name and the institution that gave them to me. And I risk getting to continue to do that when I stand up for all the people I love and who love me who don’t have the fancy papers with the right combination of letters. And there’s certainly no reason to do that here.

They’re great. They’re all great. Go Penn. Evict the whole neighborhood. Back the Blue. Wawa’s right. Fuck them kids. Lock em up. Etc. Etc.

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I think the bigger issue is the inability to focus on an issue, correctly identify its components, and stay on message about it.

I've seen some pretty outlandish looking people show up to anti-abortion rallies, and going in the way back machine, tea party rallies. They looked (and were) dumb as hell, but they were absolutely focused on one issue, with focused messaging and overly simplistic sloganeering to go with it.

You just rarely see that level of focused and consistent messaging on the left.

ohhh ok i see. that makes total sense then. penn has eyes and ears all over this city and enough money to finish the job. stay safe, friend

Penn literally isn’t even involved in this. It’s a private transaction. Their issue should be with the federal and local governments for not preparing to relocate these residents when they knew full well that the land owner didn’t plan on renewing their contract. It was a contract, they did their part, and they can do what they want with the land now.

Insane that these are the future leaders of the world lol

You’re right. I already admitted that.

I see the light now. The real threat to me are the children. How could have I been so misguided?

Penn’s gonna call out their security forces. It might get quite bloody..

Unprivileged non-student residents in Philly and how sick we are of these students’ BS

I don’t think Penn is going to pay for Reddit bots lmao. Also, that’s simply not how endowments work. Large endowments come with very specific instructions for how they are to be used (e.g. research in XYZ lab, building XYZ lab/dorm, funding a professorship, updating library computers, etc.). Even when you get calls/letters from a university asking for a donation, your money doesn’t go into a savings/checking account- it has a specified fund in the request, like an alumni event fund, scholarship fund, etc. Funds from tuition are also mapped out in a budget released by the University every fiscal year and made public to all university students and staff. It is illegal for them to use donations outside of the specified endowment purpose.

Also, consider the cost of running a world renowned research university with ~20k students. They have to recruit and pay the world’s foremost experts in hundreds of fields of study, accommodate 20k students daily (dorms, meal plans, etc.), pay for state of the art research labs (many of which are quite expensive, think nano-tech), renew technology yearly, pay thousands of non-academic personnel, and this is all before we get to costs associated with PennMedicine.

They are a fucking machine, and I’m sure there is a very effective and well budgeted PR team. I just don’t think it’s quite as big-brother as paying for downvotes or being able to control the national media.

I did not say either of those things lol

Edit: dotcom said the ‘whole city / national media’ stuff. I said an 11-figure entity has a strong lock on everything that happens on their 10ish-block campus, including their employees. And that the children of literal billionaires and international statesmen and diplomats have a financial buffer between them and law enforcement that the children of Philadelphia do not. And I truly can’t believe any of that’s so controversial.

And I didn’t mean to imply Penn was paying for downvotes. I was deliberately insulting the members of this subreddit, like a Philadelphian.

> Penn has more money, in endowment - sitting there making more money, than the GDP of like 80 countries. They have more money at their disposable than more than 10x the GDP of almost every state.

Penn's endowment is $20.7 billion. That is a lot.

The lowest GDP of any state is Vermont, at $40.2 billion

The odds of this are near-zero imo. Penn doesn't want to have any violence on its hands because they know it would look far worse for the school and invite lawsuits. They're probably just going to get protestors on technical violations of arcane school policies.

Okay I misread the factor of states’ GDP as I scrambled to write this before the first pitch of the Phils game. You got me. My point was made in the sentence before which I just double checked is correct.

I am as biased as one could possibly be, but I love Penn so very much. They are a “need blind, no loan” university and they reserve a few spaces every year for Philly student. They accepted my application based on merit and without consideration of my family’s poverty and then paid for my entire education. I went from one of the worst high schools in the city to one of the best universities in the world, free of charge and graduated with no debt, thanks to Penn. I met most of my best friends there. I own a business with my freshman year roommate now. Penn is a magical place if you can claw your way in. I always disliked the internal hate Penn received from some students.

UPenn students be like: Penn is a racist institution that needs to be gutted from the inside out.

The same exact Penn students: Attend upenn for $62,000 a year and deep down enjoy every aspect of it.

You can smell the virtue signaling a mile away

Well it’s not really the looks as much as the motivation behind the (far?) left (I’m liberal) wanting everything to be ripped out and transformed from the ground up. Abolish the police, all men are trash, or in the case of these protesters, gentrification kills. It’s not that there is absolutely no merit to any of their arguments - it’s that the extreme stances reduce them to caricatures that most people trying to go about their day (center of the spectrum) couldn’t care for. It’s not like these ideas “look bad”, some of them just lack nuance. There is good evidence from economists on building more and increasing supply even if they are “luxury” units because it reduces neighborhood housing prices. Rent control isn’t a good idea even according to Brookings but you won’t find any dearth of people railing against capitalism calling for rent controlling ALL units on r/nyc. (Before you come at me, I’m a brown liberal but not an American, if i could I would vote blue always.)

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Anyone trying to silence dissent is a coward. If you don’t like someone’s voice, move on and ignore them. If the act of hearing a dissenting opinion gets you in your feels, you should prob look in the mirror and re-examine your own position.

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Also revealing that they feel that being service staff is somehow some kind of "less than."

Why not out of endowment?

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Nah, the end of one presidential administration does not, by any means, reduce the need for rallies.

Well said!

It really depends on the criminality of the administration. Everyone has a threshold. That’s mine.

They're all criminals, one and all. Trump's administration is one of many, and every single one has sold us out. The threshold should have been crossed after the first president, and the middle class should remain angry and take action.

You really think there was a middle class during the John Adams administration?

I think you don’t get to speak for me with “we.” I have my reasons to use my voice as I see fit, and that’s okay. I don’t begrudge people their own rubrics, given how little some people know about history and politics.

Edit: to be clear, that’s a metaphorical “we.”

To a degree I do. I mean, if you don't feel like the government sold you out, that's fine, I guess. That's okay. I begrudge people their own rubrics when they start to affect mine, regardless of what people know.

My issue is that your comments did (and continue to) belie a lack of understanding of history. As for the government selling anyone out, the issue isn’t as unilateral as that, because it implies two things that are not true: 1 - that the “government” was ever “for you” and 2 - that the problems of structural class oppression can be solved by mere electoral action.

I don’t advocate violence, but education. The problem is that the means of education for the masses have been co-opted by the ruling class to become purposefully inadequate, producing useful idiots so that we now live in De Tocqueville’s nightmare.

I wish someone told me this advice when i was a college student:

You are paying $30k/year for school so just shutup, major in a field that is demand and pays well and graduate as soon as possible. Get a job and make money so you don't have to be in debt for the rest of your life. Invest in appreciating assets, like stocks, bonds, property etc. Buy a house and exercise. And if possible, donate to people to need and travel

My understanding of history is just fine. What you're reading into it which brings you to your determination, along with your right to believe such things, is totally your right.

I do believe that the original intent of the government was for the American people.However, I don't believe that structural class oppression can be solved by any sort of electoral action. There needs to be some sort of change agent that's non-violent.

I don't advocate violence, either. The means of education have been co-opted by the ruling class, and the end-result is as you said. However, I see that as only one of the issues. The ruling class has created an inadequate system. The people within the system do nothing to prevent the ruling class from staying in power, or take any sort of action to fix things, perpetuating the problem, especially in terms of education.

Didn't you know it's fashionable to protest problems but never put energy into solutions? That's for someone else to do. 🙄

That's incredibly awesome to hear. Congratulations on all your hard work and your accomplishments!