Pro-Palestinian protesters at USC comply with school order to leave their encampment

Protesters began leaving a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Southern California early Sunday after being surrounded by police and told they could be arrested if they didn’t go.

The move, days before events were set to begin on the Los Angeles campus, came after the university said that campus security officers, assisted by Los Angeles police, were clearing the area and that anyone who did not followed the rules could be arrested.

“If you are in the center of campus, please leave. People who do not leave may be arrested,” USC said on social media platform X.

Livestream video from student journalists showed the encampment emptied as police formed a line to take away remaining protesters and prevent people from re-entering the area.

The encampment had restarted after the LAPD first arrested 93 people on April 24. The atmosphere on the private college campus had remained largely calm since then, while attention focused on arrests at the University of California, Los Angeles.

At the University of Virginia, 25 people were arrested for trespassing on Saturday after police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from campus, and demonstrators at the University of Michigan chanted anti-war messages and waved flags during commencement ceremonies.

USC, a private university, has been the subject of student protests over the war in Gaza and of the government’s decision to cancel a valedictorian speech by a Muslim student who had expressed support for the Palestinians. The university made that decision in mid-April, saying it had security concerns after receiving threats. Some Jewish groups had criticized the student’s choice as speaker.

Administrators later canceled the entire main stage commencement scheduled for May 10, when 65,000 people were expected to gather to celebrate the graduates. Other commencement activities, including graduation ceremonies for individual schools and colleges, are still scheduled for Thursday through Sunday. Access to the private campus has been largely restricted to people not affiliated with the university since late April.

A video posted online Saturday evening showed some protesters singing quiet songs and chants in preparation for expected police activity. The encampment is set up on a leafy campus campus, with dozens of tents surrounded by makeshift fencing, covered with signs with various messages of support for the Palestinians and criticism of the university and law enforcement.

A university representative read a statement near the camp Saturday saying it should come out, according to Annenberg Media, a student-run campus publication, saying the camp and unspecified acts of vandalism and theft of university property were in violation of the law.

By early Friday, several dozen counter-protesters had lined up outside the camp, playing scenes of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel on a screen, Annenberg Media reported.

In Virginia, student demonstrators began their protest Tuesday on a lawn outside the school chapel. On Saturday, video from WVAW-TV showed police wearing heavy equipment and holding shields on the campus in Charlottesville. Protesters chanted “Free Palestine” and university police said on social platform X that an “unlawful assembly” had been declared in the area.

When police entered, students were pushed to the ground, pulled by their arms and sprayed with a chemical irritant, Laura Goldblatt, an assistant professor of English and global studies who has helped student protesters, told The Washington Post.

The university administration said in a statement that the protesters were told that the tents and canopies they had set up were prohibited by school policy and were asked to remove them. Virginia State Police were asked to assist with enforcement, the university said.

It was the latest clash in several tense and sometimes violent weeks at colleges and universities across the country, with dozens of protests and hundreds of arrests taking place during demonstrations over the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas; Many of the encampments have been dismantled by the police.

Tent camps of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across the country in a student movement unlike any other this century. Some schools have reached agreements with protesters to end demonstrations and reduce the possibility of disrupting finals and commencements.

The Associated Press has recorded at least 61 incidents of arrests at protests since April 18, with more than 2,400 people arrested on 47 campuses. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.

Michigan was among several schools bracing for protests this weekend, including Indiana University, Ohio State University and Northeastern University in Boston. Many more are planned in the coming weeks.

In Ann Arbor, the protest took place at the start of the event at Michigan Stadium. About 75 people, many wearing traditional Arabic kaffiyehs and their graduation caps, marched down the main aisle to the graduation stage.

They sang: ‘Regents, regents, you cannot hide! You are financing genocide!” as she held signs, including one that read: “There are no more universities in Gaza.”

Planes flying overhead flew banners with competing messages. “Divest from Israel Now! Liberate Palestine!” and “We stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.”

Officials said no one was arrested and that the protest did not seriously disrupt the nearly two-hour event attended by tens of thousands of people, some waving Israeli flags.

State police prevented the demonstrators from reaching the stage. University spokesperson Colleen Mastony said public safety personnel escorted the protesters to the back of the stadium, where they remained until the end of the event.

“These types of peaceful protests have been happening at UM commencement ceremonies for decades,” she added.

The university has allowed protesters to set up an encampment on campus, but police helped break up a large gathering at a graduation event Friday evening, and one person was arrested.

In Indiana, protesters Saturday evening urged supporters to wear their kaffiyehs and walk outside during President Pamela Whitten’s remarks. The Bloomington campus has designated a protest zone outside Memorial Stadium, the arena for the ceremony.

At Princeton, New Jersey, 18 students launched a hunger strike in an attempt to push the university to divest from companies linked to Israel.

One of them, senior David Chmielewski, said in an email that the strike began Friday morning with participants consuming only water, and will continue until administrators meet with students about demands including amnesty of criminal and disciplinary charges for protesters. Other protesters are participating in “solidarity fasts” that last 24 hours, Chmielewski said.

Princeton students set up a protest camp and some staged a sit-in at an administration building this week, leading to about 15 arrests.

Students at other colleges, including Brown and Yale, launched similar hunger strikes earlier this year before the more recent wave of encampments.

The protests stem from the conflict that began on October 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 hostages. Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled area, including about two-thirds women and children, according to the Health Ministry. Israeli attacks have destroyed the enclave and displaced most of its residents.

___

Marcelo reported from New York. Lavoie reported from Richmond, Virginia. Associated Press reporters Ed White in Detroit, Nick Perry in Meredith, New Hampshire, and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed.