(NewsNation) — Students across the U.S. are protesting on their campuses, calling for an end to the Israeli military action in Gaza and demanding schools divest from Israel.
Many of the protests are peaceful, but others have led to arrests and suspensions, including at Columbia University. Some schools have moved to hybrid learning models due to the disruption.
Some Jewish students have said the protests are antisemitic and are a threat to their safety. But other Jewish student groups are taking part in protests and say antisemitism is being weaponized against those who support Palestine.
Since Oct. 7, when the war began with an attack on Israel by Hamas that killed 1,200 people, Israel has been engaged in military action in the Gaza Strip.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have died, many of them civilians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas as it is the governing authority in the territory.
Columbia University announced late Thursday there has been progress with negotiations between protesters on campus and administrators, CNN reported.
“For several days, a small group of faculty, administrators, and University Senators have been in dialogue with student organizers to discuss the basis for dismantling the encampment, dispersing, and following University policies going forward,” the university said. “We have our demands; they have theirs.”
The negotiations between the two sides come after the university gave protesters a deadline to remove their encampments. If protesters and demonstrators cannot reach an agreement, the university said it would take “alternative options.”
Many protesters have believed that means the university will call police to clear the site.
Rumors that the New York Police Department has already been called to campus were denied by the university, the CNN report said.
Columbia University has updated its website to include a campus resources option for any students who feel their safety may be at risk amid “heightened protest activity.”
While President Joe Biden will be in New York City on Friday, his campaign said there have been no discussions of him visiting the university protests.
The New York Times reported the university’s faculty senate will hold a vote Friday on a resolution reprimanding Columbia University President Minouche Shafik over a series of her decisions, including her handling of student protests on campus. The senate fears the vote could oust Shafik during a time of crisis.
Students at the University of California, Los Angeles have joined non-student protesters in building a pro-Palestinian encampment Thursday as part of the protests around the country, NewsNation affiliate KTLA reported.
The demonstration on the school’s Dickson Plaza was promoted by the UCLA chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and the activist group People’s City Council to denounce Israel’s response to the attack by Hamas last October.
Footage captured by a KTLA helicopter showed more than 20 tents and dozens, if not hundreds, of protesters who gathered without any intervention by campus or Los Angeles police, the television station reported.
School officials said they are actively monitoring the situation to support a peaceful campus environment that respects the community’s right to free expression while minimizing disruption to the campus.
One demonstrator told KTLA that the group’s mission was to end the genocide and call for a cease-fire.
“We are really focused on creating a loving and welcoming community, and that is what this struggle is all about,” the protestor said. “It’s about centering humanity.”
Dozens of people were arrested on Thursday at Emory University in Atlanta, where demonstrators clashed with police, who used chemical irritants on protesters, according to the New York Times.
University spokeswoman Laura Diamond said that the protesters were “activists who were “attempting to disrupt our university” as students were involved in the final days of classes and exams, the newspaper reported.
In a statement to The New York Times, Atlanta Police said that officers had used chemical irritants on demonstrators who were part of the campus protest. The newspaper reported that it also reviewed video footage of a Georgia State Police trooper using a stun device on a demonstrator who was on the ground.
The university said “a couple of dozen” people had been taken into police custody, but would not say if they had been charged criminally. Fox 5 in Atlanta reported that 28 people have been arrested after protesters gathered on the campus to call for an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Protesters told the Atlanta television station that Emory had been chosen as a site for demonstrations because it was complicit in genocide and the police militarization of it, along with several other area universities.
The demonstrators also said that the local universities have intimidated and repressed students and faculty who have spoken out in support of Palestinians.
Diamond said in a statement to the New York Times that the university does not tolerate vandalism or other criminal activity on our campus.”
Pro-Palestinian activists set up a tent community at the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday after a protest began earlier with students from three Philadelphia universities taking to downtown streets, the school’s newspaper reported.
Protesters began setting up tents on the school’s College Green late Thursday afternoon, joining several college demonstrations nationwide protesting the Israel-Hamas war.
The downtown protest, organized by the Philly Palestine Coalition, began at City Hall and moved to Penn’s campus, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported. NBC10 in Philadephia reported that around 200 students from Penn, Temple University, and Drexel University took part in the protest that eventually made its way to Penn’s campus.
Protesters are demanding that the school divest from Israel, corporations that benefit from the ongoing war, and Israeli institutions that are committing “scholasticide” the student newspaper reported.
The tents were set up less than a week after Penn university officials revoked the student group Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine’s status as a registered student group, the newspaper reported.
“We respect and support the rights of our community members to protest peacefully and in keeping with University policy by which we all agree to abide,” Penn school officials said in a statement issued to the local NBC affiliate on Thursday. “However, the right to free expression and to protest on our campus is not and can never be absolute.
“We will not permit protest and speech when it devolves into words and actions that violate Penn’s policies, disrupt University business, or contribute to an intimidating, hostile, or violent environment on our campus.”
More than 100 students have set up tents at Cornell University’s arts quad on Thursday, demanding that the Ivy League stops doing business with weapons manufacturers that students say support the ongoing war in Gaza, NewsNation affiliate WYSR reports.
Faculty and staff members have joined the gathering, which also includes members of the community. Many are using megaphones to voice their opinions, according to the report
One student, who declined to be named, told WYSR that a majority of her family lives in Palestine and that some of her relatives have been killed, she said. She said she continues to worry about her family who live in the war zone.
Cornell University officials released a statement saying that tents are not permitted on the school’s arts quad. A school spokesman said that a group of tents were set up on Thursday morning after a group of around 30 students received permission, claiming the tents were part of an art installation.
The protests took place as President Joe Biden visited nearby Syracuse.
Individuals were told that their registration for the art installation, done by the group Climate Justice Cornell, was misleading. The school spokesperson said that the individuals and tents involved in the display did not comply with school policy. Students would face suspensions, and faculty would face referrals to the school’s Human Resources Department, the school said.
“Free and open expression, including peaceful protest, is core to Cornell’s values,” the school said in a statement. “We want always to allow a diversity of voices to speak and to be heard. At the same time, it is important that such expression not infringe on the rights of others in our campus community nor pose a risk to public health and safety.
“Towards these ends, we have a set of content-neutral time, place, and manner rules that guide permissible expressive activity at Cornell.”
Protesters on opposite sides of the Gaza war debate engaged in a heated exchange as protests continued on the University of California at Los Angeles campus Thursday.
Protests against the war in Gaza have erupted across the country over the past few days. Here are schools where students have been protesting:
- Columbia University
- University of Texas, Austin
- University of Southern California
- The Ohio State University
- Harvard University
- California State Polytechnic University, Humbolt
- Emerson College
- New York University
- Northwestern University
- Yale University
- University of California, Berkely
- Emory University
- Princeton University
- The George Washington University
- University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- University of Minnesota
- University of California, Los Angeles
- The New School
- Brown University
- Tufts University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of North Carolina, Charlotte
- Rice University
- University of Texas, Arlington
- University of Texas, Dallas
- University of Texas, San Antonio
- University of New Mexico
- American University
- Michigan State University
- Swarthmore College
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of Delaware
- City University of New York
- Washington University
- Vanderbilt University
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- University of Maryland, Baltimore City
- Stanford University
- University of Florida
- Florida State University
- NY Fashion Institute of Technology
- Georgia Tech
- University of Rochester
- University of Maryland, College Park
- University of Southern Maine
- University of Illinois
- John Hopkins University
- Texas A&M
NewsNation affiliate KXAN spoke to protesters who were arrested after protests on the University of Texas at Austin campus. Some said they were shocked and felt the university wasn’t on their side.
The school said roughly half of those arrested were not students at the school.
After the arrests Wednesday, Thursday was more peaceful with Texas Department of Public Safety officers staging nearby but not disrupting the peaceful protest.
Columbia University is giving pro-Palestine protesters until midnight to clear out an encampment on campus.
The university said if the encampment is not gone by Friday, the school will consider alternate methods to clear the area.
The University of Southern California has canceled the school’s main-stage graduation ceremony after a pro-Palestine encampment was set up at the school.
The Atlanta Police Department confirmed that chemical irritants were used after protesters refused orders to disperse at Emory University.
The department said it did not use any rubber bullets in the response.
The House of Representatives has added a bill from October 2023 to the calendar for next week.
The bill would give the Department of Education more power to investigate antisemitism on college campuses, redefines antisemitism and would allow the department to act in response to acts of hate on campus.
Jewish students chanted “free the hostages” as pro-Palestine protesters shouted for the resignation of the school’s president.
Princeton University issued a statement noting that protesters involved in encampments, occupations and “unauthorized disruption” who do not listen to warnings will be arrested and barred from the campus.
For students, this could mean being unable to complete their degrees.
NewsNation’s Nancy Loo reports Jewish students have expressed dismay over the encampment.