On Dec. 5, early Friday morning, the Inn at Swarthmore was vandalized in protest of Swarthmore’s Board of Managers, who met there for their quarterly meeting over the weekend. Red graffiti on the side of the building read “Board of Butchers.” The spray paint was quickly power-washed off by the college facilities and staff. The Swarthmore Police and the college’s Public Safety are investigating the incident. No one has been identified yet.
“Anyone found to be responsible for the vandalism will be held accountable,” Vice President for Communications and Marketing Andy Hirsch wrote to The Phoenix.
A day before the vandalism and the arrival of the board, Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine sent an email to the campus community with the subject line “BREAK THE BOARD OF BUTCHERS.” The email demanded the board’s divestment from companies tied to Israel, such as the college’s internet provider, Cisco, and the investment company Vanguard.
“We must pressure the board by every means necessary to drop their investments in genocide,” SJP wrote.
In The Phoenix’s Fall ’25 campus student body poll, the Board of Managers received the lowest net approval rating of any of the institutions in question at -38%.
Students on campus noticed that some buildings, like the Dining and Community Commons, were locked at times when they were usually open. Friday evening, pamphlets were distributed in the dining hall protesting the board; the cover featured an image of board members targeted by a crosshair with the text “Public Enemy No.1.”
As the board met at the Inn, staff at the dining hall were left to deal with the protest and the college’s reaction. J.S., a dining hall staff member who requested to be referred to by their initials, said that the building lockdown inconvenienced some of the workers. The back-of-the-house staff on the loading dock, for example, had to unlock the door every time they brought in supplies.
He also said a manager ordered them to clear the pamphlets immediately once they found out, which were distributed on tables all throughout the dining room.
“When this sort of stuff happens, especially at the dining hall, I can’t stress enough, it just kind of disrupts the staff more than anything,” he said.
Hirsch condemned the violent imagery in the pamphlets and pointed out the inaccuracies in the content. Some of these inaccuracies, he said to The Phoenix, were so far-fetched that it’s reasonable to question whether they came from someone outside the college.
He responded to two statements in the pamphlet that SJP used as arguments for “WHY YOU SHOULD HATE THE BOARD”: that the college has cut financial aid and that funding cuts have cost faculty and staff their jobs. Neither, he said, was accurate.
According to Hirsch, over the past ten years, the college has increased financial aid by over 120%. This year, the financial aid budget was increased to $66 million — a 7.1% increase from last year. He also acknowledged another claim by SJP that the college’s increased endowment has resulted in fewer resources for research and educational services.
“In fact, the opposite is true: the endowment supports approximately 60% of our operating budget and enables us to fund priorities central to our mission,” Hirch said.
The manager of the Inn has not responded for comment.
