NEW YORK — As students return to colleges and universities across the United States, school officials are bracing for a surge in activism against the war in Gaza. In addition, some schools are adopting rules to curb the kind of protests that took place on campus last spring.
The summer break provided some relief from student protests against the war between Israel and Hamas, but it also gave both student protesters and higher education officials a chance to regroup and strategize for the fall semester.
The stakes remain high. At Columbia University in New York, where the wave of pro-Palestinian tent camps began, President Minouche Shafik resigned on Wednesday after coming under heavy fire for her handling of the protests. Her resignation came just days after the school confirmed that three deans had resigned after officials said they exchanged derogatory language about Jewish life and anti-Semitism during a discussion on campus.
Some of the new rules universities are imposing include banning encampments, limiting the length of demonstrations, allowing protests only in designated areas and restricting access to campus to those with university identification. Critics say some of the measures will limit freedom of speech.
At Harvard University, a draft document obtained by the student newspaper last summer showed that the university was considering banning overnight camping, chalk writing and unapproved signage.
Many student protesters in the US are vowing to continue their activism, which has been fueled by the rising death toll in Gaza, which exceeded 40,000 on Thursday, the area’s Department of Health said.
Tensions on university campuses have been running high since October 7, when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking about 250 hostages.
Mahmoud Khalil, one of the lead negotiators working on behalf of the protesting students at Columbia, said he is confident that protests, including possible encampments, will resume in the fall.
“As long as Columbia continues to invest and profit from Israeli apartheid, students will continue their activism on campus in so many different ways,” he said.
He said about 50 students still face disciplinary action over last spring’s protests after a mediation process that began earlier in the summer stalled. He blamed the impasse on Columbia administrators.
“The university likes to pretend that they are in dialogue with the students. But these are all fake moves designed to appease the donor community and their political class,” said Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.
The Ivy League school in Upper Manhattan was rocked by student protests earlier this year, culminating in scenes of police officers with zip ties and riot shields storming a building occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters. Similar protests took place on university campuses across the country, many leading to violent clashes with police and more than 3,000 arrests.
Many of the students arrested during police operations, their charges were droppedbut some are still waiting for prosecutors to decide. Many have faced consequences for their academic careers, including suspensions, revoked degrees and other forms of discipline.
Shafik was among the university leaders who summoned for questioning before Congress earlier this year. She was heavily criticized by Republicans who accused her of not doing enough to combat concerns about anti-Semitism on Columbia’s campus.
She announced her resignation in an email letter to the university community, several weeks before the start of classes on Sept. 3. The university began restricting access to campus for people with Columbia IDs and registered guests on Monday, saying it wanted to limit “potential disruptions” as the new semester approaches.
“This period has taken a significant toll on my family, as well as others in the community,” Shafik wrote in her letter. “Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and decide that my departure at this point would best position Columbia to address the challenges ahead.”
Columbia’s Board of Trustees has announced that Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president.
Pro-Palestinian protesters first set up tent encampments on Columbia’s campus during Shafik’s testimony before Congress in mid-April, where she condemned anti-Semitism but drew criticism for the way she responded to faculty and students accused of bias.
The school sent the police clearing the tents the next day, just for the students to return and get inspired a wave of similar protests on campuses across the country, as students called on schools to cut financial ties to Israel and companies that support the war.
Even after the protests subsided, Colombia decided to cancel her university-wide graduation ceremonyinstead they opted for a series of smaller, school-based ceremonies.
The campus has been largely quiet this summer, but a conservative news outlet in June published footage of what it said were text messages exchanged by administrators during a May 31 panel discussion titled “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future.”
The officials were removed from their postswith Shafik saying in a July 8 letter to the school community that the posts were unprofessional and “disturbingly touched on long-standing anti-Semitic elements.”
Shafik’s critics were quick to cheer the end of her term, one of the shortest in school history.
Other prominent Ivy League leaders have also resigned in recent months, largely in response to the violent protests on campus.
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down in December after less than two years on the job, facing donor pressure and criticism because of her testimony at a Congressional hearing, where she failed under repeated questioning to say that calls for genocide against Jews on campus violated the school’s conduct policy.
And in January, Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned amid allegations of plagiarism and similar criticism because of her testimony before Congress.
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Perry reported from Meredith, New Hampshire.
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