(2) Notes:
Swarthmore College is actively pursuing third degree misdemeanor charges against the Swarthmore 9, carrying a maximum punishment of one year in prison…
Click here to sign a petition for Swarthmore to DROP the charges for these peaceful protestors.
Email: president@swarthmore.edu
Phone: 610-328-8314
Jun 29th trial event has been listed here: https://www.delcorising.com/advocacy-calendar
OR..add to your calendar directly here!!
Instagram for SJP: https://www.instagram.com/swarthmoresjp/
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Correction: An earlier version of this episode described the Swarthmore 9 as ‘nine students from Swarthmore College.’ I misspoke. Of the nine arrested on May 3, 2025, one was a current Swarthmore student and one was a former student. The other seven were not students at the college. The error has been corrected in the video.
Interview Summary
Who Is Jace Boland
Jace is a junior at Swarthmore College from Middletown, Delaware, who attended a Quaker high school in Wilmington before enrolling at Swarthmore in the fall of 2023. He got involved with student activism almost immediately — October 7th happened one month into his freshman year, and a coalition of student organizations, not just SJP, organized a sit-in shortly after. He has been involved in Palestinian rights organizing on campus ever since.
What the Encampment Was and Why It Happened
The spring 2025 encampment was one of very few on any campus that semester. It was not the first act of protest — it came after a year-long escalation from the Swarthmore administration. The spring 2024 encampment lasted over a month, produced negotiations the administration shut down, and resulted in disciplinary charges against roughly 25 students, the majority of whom were students of color. One student was suspended on the charge that they assaulted a board member by using a bullhorn in their presence. After exhausting negotiations, sign-waving, and chanting, the group decided reclaiming physical space on campus was the most powerful move available. They also believed, based on Swarthmore’s Quaker identity and its prior tolerance of protests under the Biden administration, that the school would not call police.
The Culture of the Encampment
Jace says this is his favorite question to answer. After a year of disciplinary tactics designed to scare students away from talking about Palestine, the encampment created something the administration’s strategy had been specifically trying to prevent — genuine solidarity. There was a bar of entry. Walking in meant you were willing to risk something. People came from other Philadelphia-area campuses to share food, skills, and experience, including veterans of the Penn encampment. Alumni organized food delivery. Others built wooden walkways through the mud. It was the kind of community that forms when people are backed into a corner and decide to stop pretending they are not.
The Cisco Divestment Demand
The encampment’s central demand was for Swarthmore to end its relationship with Cisco. Cisco is the world’s largest networking company and provides Swarthmore’s campus-wide VPN and cybersecurity infrastructure — meaning it is installed on every single student, faculty, and staff member’s personal device. According to the American Friends Service Committee’s Investigate project, Cisco provides networking and communications services to both the Israeli military and Israeli police forces, centralizing their communications and powering AI surveillance technology. Gaza is one of the most surveilled locations on the planet and Cisco is a major supplier of the hardware and software that enables that surveillance. The demand is not simply to drop Cisco but to replace it responsibly — students and supportive faculty are currently doing the research to identify an alternative that does not create a new problem.
The Administration’s Justifications
Swarthmore President Valerie Smith cited two things: masked and unidentified people on campus, and graffiti on an Adirondack chair that read “bomb Tel Aviv” with hearts around “Hamas” and “Houthis.” On the masks — students were masked specifically because Swarthmore has close to 400 surveillance cameras across a small campus, and the administration had been using that footage to target and discipline student activists for over a year. Masking was a direct response to documented surveillance. On the graffiti — Jace says someone drew on a chair with markers, the school painted over it within 48 hours, and the idea that marker drawings on patio furniture constituted a threat sufficient to mobilize close to 40 police officers from eight departments is, in his words, beyond him. College students draw on things constantly. It only becomes terrorism when Palestine is the subject.
The Arrest and What Followed
Jace was arrested, processed at the Swarthmore borough station — where the school’s vice president of student affairs and a public safety officer were present in the room, something he found odd — and then transported in a police motorcade to the Media police station for mugshots and fingerprinting. When his identity was confirmed during processing, Swarthmore immediately issued an interim suspension, a mechanism that allows one administrator to suspend a student and bar them from campus, housing, and dining without due process. His mother received the suspension email while pulled over on the side of I-95, not knowing where he was. He did not find out he was suspended until after he was released. His keffiyeh was among belongings that went missing and were never returned or accounted for.
After the interim suspension, he was required to clear his dorm by noon that day — a deadline he was physically incapable of meeting since he was still in a police parking lot. Alumni organized and funded a house in Philadelphia for two weeks for him and other displaced students, many of whom were financially independent or low-income. His summer research fellowship funding was revoked. He spent weeks couch surfing before moving into a lease he had already signed, then worked at an ice cream shop for the summer.
He was suspended in the fall semester as well — a second, separate action — meaning he completed his junior year while simultaneously preparing for a criminal trial, attending the school prosecuting him, and having his financial support stripped away.
Delco Officials and the DA
Jace attended the Delaware County Council meeting where DSA Delco Chair Doug Leake raised the case publicly. He was in the room. He could not speak because he is not a Delco resident. Myself and Jace’s read on Council Chair Womack’s pivot to Correctional Officers Week mid-comment: wildly out of touch, tone deaf, and frankly kind of crazy. No local elected officials have reached out to the Swarthmore 9 directly. The Swarthmore Borough Council has been more receptive. State representatives have not made contact.
On the DA — the case began under Jack Stollsteimer and transferred to current DA Tanner Rouse. Jace ran into Rouse in Swarthmore recently and spoke with him without Rouse knowing who he was. Rouse’s response was essentially that the charges were filed and therefore have to be seen through. Jace’s take: for an ostensibly progressive Democratic DA, that logic is hard to square. Swarthmore is using the Delaware County legal system to fight a dispute with its own students rather than deal with those students directly. That is a political trial, and a progressive district attorney should be able to recognize one.
Swarthmore and the Trump Administration
At the start of this school year, President Valerie Smith sent a campus-wide email celebrating Trump’s HB1 bill — a bill that dramatically expanded ICE’s budget and authorities — because it included $20 million for Swarthmore. That is where the year began. Under the Biden administration, a two-week sit-in and a month-long encampment were tolerated. Under the Trump administration, the same formation got 40 police officers called in. The “outside agitator” narrative — used to justify the police response — was never invoked during the spring 2024 encampment despite significantly more outside participation, including Philly Jewish Voice for Peace hosting events. All of a sudden, this year, those same tactics make students violent, terrorists, whatever. Jace also notes that Swarthmore’s board of managers has what he describes as a remarkably Zionist leadership, and suspects increasing pressure from the board to crack down on pro-Palestinian activity is part of the picture.
Where the Movement Is
Jace is honest that the movement is in a moment of reassessment. Three years into what he calls this phase of the genocide, with the Iran war escalating, Israel advancing into southern Lebanon, and repression of campus protest intensifying, people are trying to figure out what works. He is hopeful that the free speech dimension of the Swarthmore 9 case will draw in people who might not otherwise engage with the Palestinian rights question directly. He thinks this summer is a moment where people could band together across different entry points. His bottom line: not winning is not an option, and treating any of this as normal is exactly what those in power are counting on.
How to Help
SEE THE TOP OF THE ARTICLE
OR
here you go…😊
(2) Notes:
Swarthmore College is actively pursuing third degree misdemeanor charges against the Swarthmore 9, carrying a maximum punishment of one year in prison…
Click here to sign a petition for Swarthmore to DROP the charges for these peaceful protestors.
Email: president@swarthmore.edu
Phone: 610-328-8314
Jun 29th trial event has been listed here: https://www.delcorising.com/advocacy-calendar
OR..add to your calendar directly here!!
Instagram for SJP: https://www.instagram.com/swarthmoresjp/
