Tag: columbia university protests

University protests: Violence, chaos erupts on campuses as protesters and counter-protesters clash over the war in Gaza

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A brawl erupted at University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) after a pro-Palestinian encampment was “forcefully attacked,” the school’s chancellor said on May 1, while activists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison clashed with police officers who destroyed their tents, in a day of escalating violence on some college campuses over the war in Gaza.

Fifteen people were injured during the UCLA confrontation, including one person who was hospitalized, according to the president of the University of California system. The chaotic scenes unfolded on Wednesday after police burst into a building occupied by anti-war protesters at Columbia University on Tuesday night, breaking up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school.

Chancellor Gene Block at UCLA said in a statement that “a group of instigators” came on campus Tuesday to “forcefully attack” the pro-Palestinian encampment, prompting the school to ask for assistance from outside law enforcement.

After a couple of hours of scuffles between dueling demonstrators at the University of California, Los Angeles, police wearing helmets and face shields separated the groups and restored calm. Later Wednesday, pro-Palestinian protesters rebuilt a barricade around their encampment. There were no counter-protesters in sight, and law enforcement officers were deployed throughout the campus.

Also read | Demonstrations roil U.S. campuses ahead of graduations as protesters spar over the war in Gaza

In Madison on Wednesday, police with shields removed all but one tent and shoved protesters, resulting in a scrum. Four officers were injured, including a state trooper who was hit in the head with a skateboard, according to University of Wisconsin police spokesperson Marc Lovicott.

Within hours, protesters had erected more tents at the UW campus.

More than 30 people were arrested, most of them released without charges, but four were charged with battering law enforcement, police said.

Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century. The ensuing police crackdowns echoed actions decades ago against a much larger protest movement protesting the Vietnam War.

This is all playing out in an election year in the U.S., raising questions about whether young voters — who are critical for Democrats — will back President Joe Biden’s reelection effort, given his staunch support of Israel.

There have been confrontations with law enforcement and more than 1,300 arrests. In rare instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.

The clashes at UCLA erupted when the pro-Palestinian protesters tried to expand their encampment late Tuesday night. Counter-protesters then tried to pull down the parade barricades, plywood and wooden pallets surrounding the encampment. In the chaos, firecrackers exploded.

Police left the scene around 11.30 p.m., and police in riot gear showed up at 1.45 a.m. to establish a perimeter. Pro-Israel protesters threw traffic cones and chairs, released pepper spray, and tore down barriers around the encampment. Some from the pro-Palestinian camp hopped over the barriers and scuffled with the counter-protesters.

No one was arrested. Officials have not clarified whether the demonstrators were all students.

Chancellor Block offered his sympathy to those who were injured and anyone who feels unsafe on campus, and promised the university will conduct a thorough investigation that he said may lead to arrests, expulsions and dismissals. In addition, Mr. Block said the administration is examining its own security response.

“However one feels about the encampment, this attack on our students, faculty and community members was utterly unacceptable,” Mr. Block said. “It has shaken our campus to its core and — adding to other abhorrent incidents that we have witnessed and that have circulated on social media over the past several days — further damaged our community’s sense of security.”

Also read | More than 100 arrested at U.S. university pro-Palestinian protests

UCLA senior Edgar Gomez, who ventured outside his dorm to watch the ruckus unfold, said he saw counter-protesters tearing up Palestinian flags, and pepper spray hung in the air as the two sides fought.

“I’ve never seen this happen before,” said Mr. Gomez, adding that he isn’t with either group. “I’ve never seen people get so heated.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass both called for accountability of those involved in the melee. A spokesperson for the governor said outside law enforcement was sent to the campus after “unacceptable” delays in the university’s police force response to the clashes.

The nationwide campus demonstrations began at Columbia to protest Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.

Late Tuesday, New York City police officers entered Columbia’s campus and cleared a tent encampment, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window, and police said protesters inside presented no substantial resistance. They had seized the Ivy League school building about 20 hours earlier.

Protesters first set up a tent encampment at Columbia almost two weeks ago. The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, arresting more than 100 people. But the protesters returned.

Negotiations between the protesters and the college ground to a halt in recent days, and the school set a Monday deadline for the activists to abandon the tent encampment or be suspended.

Instead, protesters took over Hamilton Hall early Tuesday, carrying in furniture and metal barricades.

In a letter to senior police officials, Columbia President Nemat Shafik, who uses the first name Minouche, said the administration asked officers to remove protesters from the occupied building and a tent encampment “with the utmost regret.”

Columbia on Wednesday called Hamilton Hall “an active crime scene” under NYPD investigation and limited campus access to people with Columbia identification and essential personnel, barring the media.

“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said in a statement.

Fabien Lugo, a first-year accounting student who said he was not involved in the protests, said he opposed the university’s decision to call in police.

“This is too intense,” he said. “It feels like more of an escalation than a de-escalation.”

Blocks away from Columbia, at The City College of New York, demonstrators were in a standoff with police outside the public college’s main gate. Video posted on social media by reporters late Tuesday showed officers forcing some people to the ground and shoving others as they cleared the street and sidewalks.

Close to 300 protesters were arrested in the crackdowns at Columbia and City College, officials said.

Brown University, another Ivy League school, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators closed their encampment after administrators agreed to consider a vote to divest from Israel in October — apparently the first U.S. college to agree to such a demand.

Meanwhile, protest encampments were cleared or closed up voluntarily at schools from Flagstaff, Arizona, to New Orleans.

At Portland State in Oregon, school officials said some 50 protesters left a library on campus that had been occupied since Monday after administrators offered not to seek criminal charges or other discipline. An unknown number of people remained in the library Wednesday.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.

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Columbia University protests: Large numbers of New York City police officers begin entering Columbia University campus

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Large numbers of New York City police officers entered Columbia University late April 30, hours after the mayor said a pro-Palestinian protest that has crippled the Ivy League school for two weeks “must end now.”

The officers took protesters into custody after the university called in police to end the pro-Palestinian occupation on the New York campus.


Also read: Columbia university pro-Palestinian protests 2024 LIVE news updates

The scene unfolded shortly after 9 p.m. as police, wearing helmets and carrying zip ties and riot shields, massed at the Ivy League university’s entrance. The demonstrators had occupied Hamilton Hall, an administration building on campus, more than 12 hours earlier, spreading their reach from an encampment elsewhere on the grounds that’s been there for nearly two weeks.

Shortly before officers entered the campus, the New York Police Department received a notice from Columbia authorizing officers to take action, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Why are students protesting across U.S. campuses? | Explained 

The NYPD’s move came hours after the department’s brass said officers wouldn’t enter Columbia’s campus without the college administration’s request or an imminent emergency.

Columbia’s protests earlier this month kicked off demonstrations that now span from California to Massachusetts. As May commencement ceremonies near, administrators face added pressure to clear protesters.

More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested over the last two weeks on campuses in states including Texas, Utah, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Connecticut, Louisiana, California and New Jersey, some after confrontations with police in riot gear.

“Walk away from this situation now and continue your advocacy through other means,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams advised the Columbia protesters on April 30 afternoon before the police arrived. “This must end now.”

The White House earlier on April 30 condemned the standoffs at Columbia and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where protesters had occupied two buildings until officers with batons intervened overnight and arrested 25 people. Officials estimated the northern California campus’ total damage to be upwards of $1 million.

President Joe Biden believes students occupying an academic building is “absolutely the wrong approach,” and “not an example of peaceful protest,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

Other colleges have sought to negotiate agreements with the demonstrators in the hopes of having peaceful commencement ceremonies. As cease-fire negotiations appeared to gain steam, it wasn’t clear whether those talks would inspire an easing of protests.

Northwestern University notched a rare win when officials said they reached a compromise with students and faculty who represent the majority of protesters on its campus near Chicago to allow peaceful demonstrations through the end of spring classes.

The nationwide campus protests began at Columbia in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local Health Ministry.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.

On Columbia’s campus, protesters locked arms early on April 30 and carried furniture and metal barricades to Hamilton Hall, among several buildings that were occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest. Demonstrators called the building Hind’s Hall, honoring a young girl who was killed in Gaza under Israeli fire.

The takeover came hours after protesters had shrugged off an earlier ultimatum to abandon a tent encampment Monday or be suspended — restricted from all academic and recreational spaces, allowed only to enter their residences, and, for seniors, ineligible to graduate.

Mahmoud Khalil, a lead negotiator before talks with the administration broke down over the weekend, was among the suspended students. His suspension letter — which he shared with The Associated Press — said he had refused to leave the encampment after prior warnings, but Khalil said he had abided by the university’s demand to vacate the encampment on the campus lawn by the April 29 afternoon deadline.

Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang said in a statement that anyone occupying Hamilton Hall risked being expelled from the university for escalating the protest “to an untenable situation — vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, and blockading entrances.”

Occupying protesters have insisted they will remain in Hamilton Hall until the university agrees to three demands — divestment, financial transparency and amnesty.

Students had defiantly set up tents again after police cleared an encampment at the university on April 18 and arrested more than 100 people. The students had been protesting on the Manhattan campus since the previous day, opposing Israeli military action in Gaza and demanding the school divest from companies they claim are profiting from the conflict.

The Columbia University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors said faculty’s efforts to help defuse the situation have been repeatedly ignored by the university’s administration despite school statutes that require consultation. The group warned of potential conflict between police officers nearby and protesters on campus.

“We hold University leadership responsible for the disastrous lapses of judgment that have gotten us to this point,” the chapter said in a statement late on April 30. “The University President, her senior staff, and the Board of Trustees will bear responsibility for any injuries that may occur during any police action on our campus.”

Ilana Lewkovitch, a self-described “leftist Zionist” student at Columbia, said it’s been hard to concentrate on school for weeks, amid calls for Zionists to die or leave campus. Her exams have been punctuated with chants of “say it loud, say it clear, we want Zionists out of here” in the background, she said.

Ms. Lewkovitch, who identifies as Jewish and studied at Columbia’s Tel Aviv campus, said she wished the current pro-Palestinian protests were more open to people like her who criticize Israel’s war policies but believe there should be an Israeli state.

Mr. Adams claimed on April 30 that the Columbia protests had been “co-opted by professional outside agitators.” The mayor didn’t provide specific evidence to back up that contention, which was disputed by protest organizers and participants.

NYPD officials made similar claims about “outside agitators” during the huge, grassroots demonstrations against racial injustice that erupted across the city after the death of George Floyd in 2020. In some instances, top police officials falsely labeled peaceful marches organized by well-known neighborhood activists as the work of violent extremists.

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Why are students protesting across U.S. campuses? | Explained

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The story so far:

On April 18, more than 100 pro-Palestinian protestors who were camped out in tents in Columbia University, New York, were arrested by the police. Since then, similar encampments and protests have risen across U.S. campuses, including in New York University, Yale University and the University of Texas. These protests are an escalation of the demonstrations going on in U.S. campuses ever since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

What happened?

Columbia University president Minouche Shafik called in the NYPD to arrest the camping students a day after her Congressional hearing with the U.S House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The hearing was to learn more about the University’s efforts in countering anti-Semitism. Similar hearings had happened on December 5, 2023 with the presidents of the Universities of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Massachusetts, after which presidents of Pennsylvania and Harvard resigned amid criticism of their “inaction” in handling rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia on campuses after the October 7 attacks. In a similar pattern, Ms. Shafik was also questioned on the university’s inaction to stop anti-Semitic rhetoric on the campus and has faced calls for resignation from various quarters, particularly from New York’s Republican Congressional delegation.

In her latest statement on April 23, Ms. Shafik had given a deadline for protestors to reach a peaceful agreement with the University. She warned that if the talks were not successful, “we will have to consider alternative options for clearing the West Lawn and restoring calm to the campus so that students can complete the term and graduate”. Since then, discussions have been ongoing and the deadline extended twice.

Several campuses, taking inspiration from the protests in Columbia, have peacefully escalated their protests, which have also faced repression from respective university administrations. On April 25, more than 30 people were arrested at a protest held at the University of Texas.

What are the protests about?

On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 civilians and taking more than 250 people hostage, following which Israel commenced its invasion of the Gaza Strip, killing over 34,000 people, a vast majority of them women and children. Protests have been going on in universities ever since, calling for a permanent ceasefire. These protests peaked last week when students of Columbia started camping out in front of the university campus lawn, creating, as they call it, a ’Gaza solidarity encampment’.

Their primary demands: Columbia university should divest funds from any company/institution that is associated with Israel or profits from “Israeli apartheid”; financial transparency into the university’s investments; and amnesty for all students/faculty that have been participating in the ongoing pro-Palestinian movement. As per the Columbia Daily Spectator, the student newspaper of the university, on April 23, Columbia College passed a divestment referendum by a large margin. The referendum asked students whether the university should divest financially from Israel, cancel the Tel Aviv Global Center, and end Columbia’s dual degree programme with the Tel Aviv University. The first question passed with 76.55% of voters in favour, while the latter two garnered 68.36% and 65.62% support, respectively.

Columbia University has a rich history when it comes to student movements. The last time protests of this scale rocked the campus was in 1968 when students protested the U.S.’s role in the Vietnam War and university policies they considered racist. Similar push-back happened then as well with almost 700 people being arrested by the police.

How have the protests been perceived?

The protests have increasingly polarised student groups and pitted them against each other. While the pro-Palestinian movement has asserted that their movement is peaceful and that their sole goal was to fight against the ongoing “genocide” in Gaza and the U.S.’s complicity in the same, certain Jewish student groups allege that there have been instances of anti-Semitism in the protests and that Jews feel unsafe on the campus.

Several Congresspeople have said the protests were the reason for the alleged increase in anti-Semitism on the campus. New York City Mayor Eric Adams stated that he is “horrified and disgusted” with the anti-Semitism being “spewed” at Columbia University. The State of Israel’s official X account retweeted a video of the Columbia protests, calling the protestors “terrorists”.

Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, on the other hand, has backed the protests, stating the arrests have “ignited a nationwide Gaza Solidarity movement”. She stated on X that “this is more than the students hoped for and I am glad to see this type of solidarity”.

On April 21, The White House also weighed into the issue with a statement which said, “even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant anti-Semitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

Do campuses receive funds from Israel?

The ‘disclose and divest’ demand of the protestors have gained much traction over the week. It has its roots in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which is a non-violent Palestinian-led movement, calling for boycott and economic sanctions against Israel.

A report by the Associated Press quotes MIT students who state that MIT has accepted more than $11 million from the Israel Defence Ministry over the past decade. Similarly, the protestors at the University of Michigan say the university sends more than $6 billion to investment managers who profit from Israeli companies or contractors.

However, University of Michigan officials said they have no direct investments with Israeli companies, and that indirect investments made through funds amount to a fraction of 1% of the university’s $18 billion endowment. This sentiment was echoed in a report by the The New York Times, which said universities have less direct control over their investments, opting instead for asset managers to oversee portfolios. Some university administrators have also made the point that very little of their endowments is invested in companies that could be linked to Israel.

According to the Federal Student Aid database, from 2020-22, Columbia University received over $2 million as foreign gifts and contracts from Israel. However, it is unclear from where in Israel these funds came from, who the investors were and what the fund was used for.

On the other hand, universities are losing funding from investors due to what investors are calling ‘anti-Israel protests’. Law and investment firms have threatened to rescind job offers and not hire protesters when they graduate. Some of the prominent investors who have declared they will pull funding from campuses include venture capitalists David Magerman and Jonathon Jacobson, and Jon Huntsman, the former U.S. ambassador to China.

What next?

Tensions remain high across U.S. college campuses as university administrations try to balance students’ protests and increasing pressure from the government. While Columbia discussions seem to be moving forward with a large section of students dispersing in return for written agreements that the police nor the National guard will be called in, protests across other U.S. campuses seem to be spreading like wildfire.

Meanwhile, the war in Gaza rages on. Israel pounded Gaza with airstrikes on April 24 following the approval of a $13 billion aid package by the U.S. Congress to Israel. Reports suggest that Israel is gearing up to begin its assault on Rafah, where over 1.4 million Palestinians are now seeking refuge.

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