Michael Hernandez
April 24, 2024•Update: April 24, 2024
WASHINGTON
Student antiwar protests spread and intensified at US universities on Tuesday as demonstrators demanded that their institutions of higher learning condemn Israel’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip and divest from Israeli firms in response.
Last week’s decision by Columbia University President Minouche Shafik to ask the New York Police Department to arrest dozens of protesters has largely served as a flashpoint for the wider protest movement.
Thursday’s arrests of over 100 people incensed students who have been stridently seeking an immediate cease-fire to end the bloodshed in Gaza and emboldened a new wave of protesters.
At Columbia, protesters defiantly changed tactics and quickly moved to a lawn adjacent from the original "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" cleared by police. They were joined on Tuesday by Palestinian photographer Motaz Azaiza, whose work chronicled the grim realities of the war in Gaza, and Najla Said, the daughter of late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said.
As protests have continued on that campus, they have also been spreading rapidly on campuses near and far, including at New York University and the New School in Manhattan, Harvard University near Boston and Yale in Connecticut.
Protesters at the New School have now occupied the lobby of the University Center for the better part of three days. A picket line has formed outside the facility, bucking threats of suspensions and expulsions from administrators.
Over 130 people, including students and professors, were arrested overnight Monday at New York University. They were released with court summonses requiring them to appear before a judge at a later date.
Protesters at Yale University in Connecticut have opted to sleep under the stars in order to skirt threats from administrators that they would be arrested if they attempted to set up tents again after an initial tent encampment was cleared Monday alongside dozens of arrests.
Harvard Yard remains closed Tuesday, and campus authorities are checking for student IDs before allowing people on campus.
The unrest has not been limited to the Northeast, however.
Some 3,000 miles (4,828 kilometers) away from Columbia, demonstrators at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt occupied Siemens Hall on Monday and clashed with police who tried to clear them from the facility. Officers ultimately withdrew from the site without bringing about an end to the demonstration, though arrests were reported.
Another encampment erected by students at the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota on Tuesday morning quickly resulted in the arrests of nine individuals. Students responded by gathering en masse for a demonstration that was sharply critical of Interim President Jeff Ettinger.
About 1,000 people participated, and students rapidly moved to establish a new camp consisting of several yurts in front of the Coffman Memorial Student Union.
Other encampments erected in the wake of last week's events were established at Swarthmore College and the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, the University of Rochester in New York, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University and Emerson College in Massachusetts, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The size of each sit-in varies greatly, but photos of the site at the University of Michigan showed dozens of tents.
While last week's events greatly accelerated the antiwar movement, several pro-Palestine encampments preceded the crackdown, including one at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, which has endured for nearly a month.
Efforts to restrict the protests have done little to quell criticism from those who say university leaders are not doing enough to provide campus security, particularly for Jewish students.
Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip has displaced more than 75% of the coastal enclave's estimated 2.3 million residents and resulted in over 34,000 deaths, according to Gaza health officials. The vast majority of the dead have been women and children.
Israel has also targeted Gaza's places of higher education, with all of its 12 major universities being destroyed.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, has separately reported mass destruction at the sprawling network of schools it operates in the coastal enclave.
