The University of Southern California (USC) on Thursday canceled its main graduation ceremony and dozens more college students were arrested at other campuses in the US as protests against the Israel-Hamas war continued to spread.
College officials across the US are worried the ongoing protests could disrupt plans for commencement ceremonies next month. Some universities have called in police to break up the demonstrations, resulting in ugly scuffles and hundreds of arrests, while others appeared content to wait out student protests as the final days of the semester ticked down.
Schools such as Columbia University in New York continued to negotiate with protesters who first set up an encampment last week. At California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, faculty members met with students who have barricaded themselves inside a campus building since Monday, trying to negotiate a solution. The campus was shut down earlier this week with classes moved online.
Photo: Reuters
Other universities are rewriting their rules to ban encampments and moving final exams to new locations.
However, encampments and protests continued to spring up on Thursday. At Indiana University Bloomington, a tent encampment popped up before police with shields and batons shoved into a line of protesters, arresting 33 people.
At the City College of New York, hundreds of students who were gathered on the lawn beneath the Harlem campus’ famed gothic buildings erupted in cheers after a small contingent of police officers retreated from the scene. In one corner of the quad, a “security training” was held among students.
Police on Thursday arrested one protester and tore down tents at the University of Connecticut, while demonstrators at Stanford University rallied on a day when newly admitted students visited the campus.
Students protesting the war are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies enabling the conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into anti-Semitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus.
USC announced the cancelation of the graduation ceremony on May 10 a day after more than 90 protesters were arrested on campus.
The university said it would still host dozens of commencement events, including all the traditional individual school commencement ceremonies.
Tensions were already high after USC canceled a planned commencement speech by the school’s pro-Palestinian valedictorian, citing safety concerns.
“We understand that this is disappointing; however, we are adding many new activities and celebrations to make this commencement academically meaningful, memorable, and uniquely USC,” the university said on Thursday in a statement.
The Los Angeles Police Department said 93 people were arrested on Wednesday night during a campus protest for allegedly trespassing.
One person was arrested on allegations of assault with a deadly weapon.
At Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, 108 people were arrested overnight at an alleyway encampment. Video shows police first warning students in the alleyway to leave. Students linked arms to resist officers, who moved forcefully through the crowd and threw some protesters to the ground.
“As the night progressed, it got tenser and tenser. There were just more cops on all sides. It felt like we were being slowly pushed in and crushed,” sophomore Ocean Muir said.
Muir said police lifted her by her arms and legs, and carried her away.
Along with other students, Muir was on Thursday charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.
Emerson College leaders said that the alley was a public right-of-way and city authorities had threatened to take action if the protesters did not leave.
The University of Texas’ Austin campus was much calmer on Thursday after 55 people were arrested a day earlier — 26 of whom had no affiliation with the university, university president Jay Hartzell said in a statement.
University officials pulled back barricades and allowed demonstrators onto the main square beneath the school’s iconic clock tower.
Thursday’s gathering of students and some faculty protested both the war and Wednesday’s arrests, when state troopers in riot gear and on horseback bulldozed into protesters, forcing hundreds of students off the school’s main lawn.
At Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, local and state police swept in to dismantle a camp. Some officers carried semi-automatic weapons, and video shows officers using a stun gun on one protester whom they had pinned to the ground. The university in a statement late on Thursday said that objects were thrown at officers and they deployed “chemical irritants” as a crowd control measure.
Jail records showed 22 people arrested by Emory police were charged with disorderly conduct. Emory said it had been notified that 28 people were arrested, including 20 members of the university community and some had been released as of nighttime.
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