In the first two days of May, a total of six Swarthmore college students were suspended for setting up campus camps earlier this week. Swarthmore students in Pennsylvania were suspended without due process and told to evacuate campus, Swarthmore students said in a May 2 statement.

Of the six students temporarily suspended, four are people of color and three are first-generation students, low-income students, which is “part of the disturbing trend of Swarthmore exploiting student protesters’ vulnerability on the basis of racial discrimination.” Students with temporary suspensions are prohibited from attending college events or stepping on campus. Swarthmore SJP did not respond to a request for comment before the publication date.

Swarthmore Academy president Valerie Smith said in a statement to the campus community on May 1 that protesters destroyed campus property. "If they continue not to spread and violate the University's policies and laws, we have no choice but to escalate our response because we consider all actions to end the camp," Smith said.

Smith said SJP used social media to encourage activists outside the university to join the camp, who ignored repeated requests to evacuate Trotter Lawn, where they erected the camp. "We informed students many times that, verbally and in writing, they violated several policies in the Student Code of Conduct. Students were instructed to disband the camp and leave Trote Lawn and repeatedly warned that failure to do so would result in temporary suspension of school."

Swarthmore College is one of 60 schools that the Trump administration considers anti-Semitic harassment on campus.

A few higher education institutions began campus camps this spring, a revival of last year’s pro-Palestinian movement against Israel’s war against Gaza, with at least 62,000 Palestinians killed since October 7, 2023, when Israelis were killed about 1,100 years ago. But this year, the Trump administration’s crackdown and punitive measures have curbed protests on pro-Palestinian campuses.

On the Yale University campus in late April, hundreds of student protesters set up a camp that was scattered in a few days. On April 22, 44 Yale University were arrested, some of whom faced disciplinary action from the university. At Tulane, seven students face punitive measures, including attending off-campus protests in New Orleans, demanding the release of Pro-Palestinian former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil.

SJP members said on the campus of Swarthmore College that they plan to stay in the camp: “These negations are irrelevant when we remember our purpose here: Thousands of Palestinians have been entangled and displaced but continue to resist in the face of genocide violence.”