Following a turbulent fall and spring semester marked by rallies and off-campus encampments in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, Temple has faced backlash for its newly-tightened restrictions around on-campus demonstrations.
Student organizations and CAIR-Philadelphia have criticized Temple Police Department’s response to Temple Students for Justice in Palestine’s Sept. 27 career fair protest that ended in the club’s suspension. For many, the incident called into question how TUPD is trained to respond to demonstrations.
Temple Public Safety does not have any Temple-specific protest or demonstration guidelines that they educate their force on, said Sean Quinn, president of Temple University Police Association Temple officers report on the event and send the report to Student Affairs, then Student Affairs decides if they will penalize a student depending on if they are found to have violated the Student Code of Conduct.
Under the updated demonstration guidelines, TUPD is able to move or request the removal of any demonstrator believed to be in violation of university policy, regulations or guidelines.
Officers receive Municipal Police Officers’ Education and Training Commission classes from the state police. All officers are mandated to take at least four courses, or 12 hours of course material each year.
During the summer, all TUPD officers attended riot and protest training from this commission in congruence with State Police, as well as a Philadelphia Police Department session that gave equivalent training.
“They show us formations, what we should and shouldn’t do, how to affect an arrest if you have to, all basic stuff,” Quinn said. “It’s essentially the same thing with the state police, just a refresher course. I’m assuming probably every year from now on, we’ll have to go to a refresher course for this. It might even become a [Municipal Police Officers’ Education and Training Commission] standard.”
Students representing both pro-Palestinian organizations and pro-Israeli organizations have held events around campus, including various vigils at the Bell Tower or various rallies, since Oct. 7, 2023. Students are expected to go through Student Affairs to request a room or space for a protest or demonstration in private spaces on campus.
“As soon as we hear about it, we make contact with the organizer and ask them, ‘What do you guys plan [to do]? Can you share with us?’” Vice President for Public Safety Jennifer Griffin said last year in an interview with The Temple News. “Do you have an idea on numbers? Are you moving, are you stationary? And then based on that, we plan out what our response will be.”
The university has faced criticism from free-speech advocates like the American Civil Liberties Union for its handling of previous protests. The Council of American Islamic Relations held a press conference on Oct. 2 calling for an investigation of the arrests of four students at a protest at a career fair and TUPD and PPD’s conduct throughout.
Following the press conference, TUPD released a statement stating they did not find evidence of wrongdoing by TUPD officers. The department has not released body camera footage from those involved.
The Israel-Hamas war has pushed universities deeper into the ongoing “culture wars” particularly around issues of free speech. Universities have faced strong criticisms on both ends of the political spectrum; conservative lawmakers denounced the protests as a symptom of “woke” identities while more liberal members claimed that universities are unfairly suppressing students’ free-speech.
Temple is not alone in its crackdown on demonstrations, with several other high profile universities, like Columbia University, also announcing revised campus demonstration policies. At Columbia, home of the first pro-Palestinian encampment, students are now required to inform administrators of planned protests. Their guidelines were also updated to prohibit “substantially inhibit the primary purposes” of university space, essentially barring encampments.
“There was a working group from administrators throughout the university that tried to pull all of the different policies that were relevant into fewer policies, then advertise them and put them transparent on the website,” Griffin said. “Police officers are notified of those, and we frequently will respond to different issues.”
The demonstration guidelines also encompass building or occupying any kind of privately made structures or sleeping outside. Griffin encouraged that anyone planning to protest should review the website and the “easily accessible” guidelines that the administration reviewed during the summer.
“We don’t discipline – what we do is we enforce laws, we uphold the Constitution, that’s our role and that’s the role every police officer takes,” said Andrew Lanetti, vice president of TUPA.
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