EDITORS' CORNER
Any students involved will face ‘immediate disciplinary action,’ college president says
Students at Swarthmore College awoke to “hundreds” of anti-Israel messages spraypainted across their Pennsylvania campus on Friday morning, an incident that its president described as “criminal acts of cowardice.”
Local police are investigating alongside the school, but neither has said yet if any of the individuals involved were students, ABC 6 Action News reports.
The graffiti included “Student intifada,” “F— Israel,” “Genocide,” and “Board of Butchers,” a reference to the college’s governing board, student newspaper The Swarthmore Phoenix reports.
“I am as disappointed as I am angry at these criminal acts of cowardice,” President Val Smith said in a statement Friday. “These six or so individuals, who made their way across campus in the dead of night while fully disguised, chose to violate not just our policies and the law, but our sense of community.”
She described the vandalism as “so extensive and widespread that it will likely take days to remove it all. In some cases, such as on trees and certain building materials, remnants of the vandalism may remain for an extended period of time.”
Smith said the college will discipline any students found to have been involved.
“If we find that students were part of the group that committed these acts, they will face immediate disciplinary action, including interim suspension,” she said.
The graffiti covered the buildings and grounds, including stone walls, trees, trash cans, sidewalks, and columns, according to the student newspaper:
The vandalism took place in a 30-minute window around 3:30 a.m. on Friday, according to Vice President for Communications and Marketing Andy Hirsch. …
Some of the graffiti included, “Divest Now,” “Genocide,” “Board of Butchers,” “Gaza,” “F— Israel,” “BOM You Can’t Hide,” “Drop Cisco,” and inverted red triangles, a symbol that originated in Hamas combat videos marking Israel Defense Forces targets before attack. …
According to several staff members who spoke to The Phoenix Friday morning, the graffiti required significant work on the part of Facilities, Grounds, and Environmental Services (EVS) to remove the spray-paint from different parts of campus. Some of these workers were called in as early as 4:30 a.m., according to Hirsch.
The Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine posted several photos of the vandalism on its Instagram page, writing, “Last night, we received these photos from an anonymous source, alongside the following message: ‘The board of butchers are not welcome on campus.'”
The vandalism messages echo language commonly used on the pro-Palestinian group’s social media account. As The Jerusalem Post reports:
In December, Swarthmore SJP described the [college governing] board as its “greatest enemy” because they supposedly invested the college’s endowment in companies with relations to Israel and refused to divest from them. Swarthmore SJP called for the college to divest from and end contracts with Cisco Technologies and to “fully divest all finances from companies profiting from ‘Israeli apartheid and ongoing genocide.’”
“Drop Cisco,” read the graffiti. “Divest.”
The SJP chapter has also called for all legal proceedings and disciplinary actions against anti-Israel activists, including for involvement with the campus protest encampment the previous year. On April 17, SJP dropped banners with similar messages in a Swarthmore building. They later complained on Instagram that the administration called police officers to remove the masked activists.
“The more they try to silence us, the louder we will be. It is time to show Swarthmore that they can be held accountable,” SJP said at the time. “Long live the student intifada.”
In recent years, anti-Israel protests on the private college’s southeastern Pennsylvania campus have resulted in a number of arrests, charges, and acts of vandalism.
In 2025, police arrested nine pro-Palestinian protesters and charged them with trespassing after they allegedly ignored repeated warnings to leave. Campus leaders also reported vandalism during the protesters’ encampment on the college lawn, The College Fix reported.
A year earlier, a campus spokesperson said some staff members “sought medical treatment for hearing damage” due to anti-Israel activists’ use of a bullhorn “in close proximity,” The Fix reported at the time.
MORE: Swarthmore College anti-Israel protesters complain about ‘bullhorn’ assault charges
