Arrests follow barricades and encampments as college students nationwide protest Gaza war

Standoffs between pro-Palestinian student protesters and universities grew tense on both coasts on Wednesday, as hundreds camped at Columbia University were given a government deadline to vacate, while dozens remained barricaded in two buildings on a university campus in North -California.

Both are part of the intensifying demonstrations over Israel’s war with Hamas by university students across the country, which have led to dozens of arrests on charges of trespassing or disorderly conduct.

Columbia President Minouche Shafik in a statement Wednesday set a midnight deadline to reach an agreement with students to vacate the encampment, or “we will consider alternative options.”

That deadline passed without news of an agreement. Videos showed some protesters tearing down their tents, while others doubled down on their speeches. The heightened tension came the evening before U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s trip to Columbia to visit Jewish students and address anti-Semitism on college campuses.

Across the country, protesters at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, began using furniture, tents, chains and zip ties to block building entrances Monday evening. The backlash was less expected in the conservative California region, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) north of San Francisco.

“We are not afraid of you!” protesters chanted before officers in riot gear pushed against them at the entrance to the building, video shows. Student Peyton McKinzie said she was walking across campus Monday when she saw police grab a woman by the hair and another student whose head was bandaged due to an injury.

“I think a lot of students are shocked by it,” she told the Associated Press.

Three students have been arrested, according to a statement from Cal Poly Humboldt, which closed the campus until Wednesday. An unknown number of students occupied a second campus building on Tuesday.

The increase in demonstrations has left universities struggling to balance campus safety with the right to free speech. Many have long tolerated the protests, largely demanding that schools condemn Israel’s attack on Gaza and divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel.

Now universities are implementing harsher discipline, citing security concerns, as some Jewish students say criticism of Israel has turned to anti-Semitism.

The protests had been bubbling for months but kicked into high gear after more than a hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had been camping on Columbia’s campus in upper Manhattan were arrested on Thursday.

Late Monday at New York University, police said 133 protesters had been taken into custody and all had been released with summonses to appear in court on charges of disorderly conduct.

In Connecticut, police arrested 60 protesters — including 47 students — at Yale after they refused to leave an encampment in a square in the middle of campus.

Yale President Peter Salovey said protesters had rejected an offer to end the demonstration and meet with administrators. After several warnings, school officials determined that “the situation was no longer safe,” so police cleared the encampment and made arrests.

In the Midwest, a demonstration in the middle of the University of Michigan campus had grown to nearly 40 tents on Tuesday, and nine anti-war protesters at the University of Minnesota were arrested after police tore down an encampment in front of the library. Hundreds gathered on Minnesota’s campus in the afternoon to demand their release.

Harvard University in Massachusetts has tried to stay ahead of the protests by locking most of the gates of the famed Harvard Yard and limiting entry to those with school identification. The school has also posted signs warning against setting up tents or tables on campus without permission.

Literature Ph.D. Student Christian Deleon said he understood why Harvard’s administration is trying to avoid protests, but said there should still be a place for students to express their opinions.

“We should all be able to use spaces like this to protest, to make our voices heard,” he said.

Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said college leaders face extremely difficult decisions because they have a responsibility to ensure people can express their opinions even if others find them offensive, while protecting students from threats and intimidation.

The New York Civil Liberties Union warned universities in a statement Tuesday against being too quick to involve law enforcement.

“Officials should not confuse criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, or use hate incidents as a pretext to silence political positions they oppose,” said Donna Lieberman, the group’s executive director.

Leo Auerbach, a student at the University of Michigan, said the differing views on the war had not made him feel unsafe on campus, but he feared the “hateful rhetoric and anti-Semitic sentiment that would reverberate” become’.

“As we try to create an inclusive community on campus, there must be constructive dialogue between groups,” Auerbach said. “And right now there is no dialogue taking place.”

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, physics senior Hannah Didehbani said protesters were inspired by those in Columbia.

“Right now there are several professors on campus who receive direct research funding from the Israeli Ministry of Defense,” she said. “We have called on MIT to sever those research ties.”

Protesters at the University of California, Berkeley, which had an encampment of about 30 tents on Tuesday, were also inspired by the Columbia protesters, “who we consider the heart of the student movement,” said law student Malak Afaneh.

The campus protests began after Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. During the ensuing war, Israel killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which makes no distinction between combatants and non-combatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women.

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Perry reported from Meredith, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Triangle, Virginia; Larry Lage in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Steve LeBlanc in Cambridge, MA; Dave Collins in Hartford, Conn.; Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri; Port Daley in San Francisco; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.