In New York, as protests over Israel’s Gaza conflict persisted on U.S. college campuses, Columbia University engaged in negotiations with student demonstrators. Meanwhile, at the University of Southern California, graduating students grappled with the cancellation of the main commencement ceremony.
At Columbia, students remained on campus lawns amid rumors of a midnight deadline to disperse the encampments. The Ivy League institution has been a focal point of student protests for over a week, particularly following the involvement of the New York City Police Department and the arrest of over 100 students last Thursday, initiated by university president Minouche Shafik.
Subsequently, similar encampments have sprung up nationwide, from California to Massachusetts, sparking a national dialogue on free speech on college campuses. However, concerns have been raised about instances of antisemitism during the demonstrations, voiced by some Jewish students and administrators.
Student protesters are urging universities to sever financial connections with Israel and Israeli firms, particularly those profiting from the Gaza conflict. Although these protests haven’t resulted in divestments, their week-long duration has had widespread effects, prompting the shift to online classes and causing disruptions to graduation arrangements.
Revolving Demonstrations Outside Columbia University
As Columbia’s encampment quietly hummed on a sunny Friday morning, just outside campus gates, revolving protests were taking place.
First hundreds gathered in a pro-Israel demonstration, waving Israeli flags and holding images of hostages taken by Hamas and other militants in the Oct. 7 attacks, chanting “Bring them home now! Alive!” New York City police, donning helmets and batons, stood behind barricades as the rally concluded peacefully.
“There are people that support Israel, that believe Israel has the right to exist,” said retired educator Lois Stavsky, 76, a self-described “left-wing Zionist” who had returned after three months in Israel and Europe because she “didn’t like the vibes” in New York, home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Tel Aviv. She saw the student encampment as “mindless,” she said. “I think they’re naive. I don’t hate them. I kind of feel sorry for that mob mentality.”
Soon after, the space was occupied by a large group of Hasidic Jews, who were holding signs reading “All Palestine must be returned to Palestinian Sovereignty” and “Judaism Rejects Zionism.” They could be heard chanting “one, two, three, four, Zionism no more. Five, six, seven, eight, stop the killing, stop the hate.”
Trump weighs in on college protests, calling them ‘tremendous hate’
Donald Trump on Thursday described the ongoing protests and unrest at college campuses across the U.S. as “tremendous hate” and placed the blame at the feet of his opponent in the upcoming presidential election, Joe Biden.
“This is tremendous hate and we have a man that can’t talk about it because he doesn’t understand it,” Trump said following the day’s testimony in his hush money trial in New York. “He doesn’t understand what’s going on with our country.”
Trump’s comment’s follow statements from several Republican members of Congress who accused university administrators of allowing harassment toward Jewish students − allegations which led to the ousting of the president’s of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.
“It’s detestable. As Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over, the virus of antisemitism has spread across other campus,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednessday, during a visit to the Columbia Campus “Anti-Israel encampments are popping up in universities all across this country. The madness has to stop.”
More student encampments form at New York City schools
On Friday, the antiwar encampment at the City College of New York entered its second day with about three dozen tents visible at the center of its West Harlem campus.
On a flagpole with the American flag, people added a Palestinian flag. Signs in support of the City University of New York public school system divesting from Israel were at the base of the flagpole. Inside the encampment, a few people served coffee, water and food.
When the encampment first formed at CUNY on Thursday, campus public safety made an attempt to enter the space but were ultimately forced out. City College, a public institution within the CUNY system, boasts a largely open campus.
According to the New York Police Department, officers did not intervene within the CUNY encampment, a departure from the previous week’s events at Columbia University, located approximately 20 blocks south, where police intervention led to the arrest of 100 individuals.
City College now joins numerous other colleges and universities across the U.S. in establishing encampments following the events at Columbia. Additionally, on Thursday, demonstrators at the Fashion Institute of Technology, a public school within the State University of New York system, also erected an encampment at its Manhattan campus to protest the ongoing conflict.
The protests’ impacts on classes, graduation
Over the past two weeks, the large demonstrations have led university administrators to adopt new policies to deal with the protests while others have been forced to restructure class schedules and graduation ceremonies.
This week, Indiana University Bloomington revised its longstanding policy on “temporary structures,” now requiring students to obtain prior approval from the university before setting up tents on the campus’ main lawn, as reported by the Indiana Daily Student. Similarly, Northwestern University in Illinois swiftly implemented a ban on temporary structures following Thursday’s nationwide antiwar protests, as detailed by the Chicago Tribune.
At Columbia University, students were offered a virtual class option for the remainder of the semester after protests led to the cancellation of in-person classes on Monday.
On Thursday, USC made the decision to cancel its main commencement ceremony citing safety concerns. This announcement came ten days after administrators made the controversial decision to prohibit valedictorian Asna Tabassum, who is Muslim, from delivering a commencement address.
As the spring semester draws to a close and graduation ceremonies are scheduled in the weeks ahead, other institutions are facing decisions regarding the feasibility of holding commencement ceremonies.
Hundreds arrested in nationwide college protests
Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been arrested at protests on university campuses this week from California and Texas to Indiana and Connecticut.
At Emerson College in Boston, more than 100 people were arrested and four officers were injured when police cleared an encampment. In Atlanta, officers arrested more than 25 people and used non-lethal ammunition to disperse a crowd of protesters at Emory University, where one person was shocked with a stun gun after being taken to the ground by police. Over 50 people were arrested at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the University of Texas at Austin. And, at USC, police arrested more than 90 people in on-campus protests. The dayslong demonstrations have all centered on the war in Gaza that was triggered by Hamas’ incursion into southern Israel on Oct. 7, when about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and more than 240 people were taken hostage. Israel launched a massive military campaign against Hamas and the resulting bombardment and ground assault has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, leveled large swaths of Gaza and caused a humanitarian crisis that’s left the population on the brink of starvation.
