IBL News | New York
The protests, which started at Columbia University last week, spread to universities and colleges across over eight states in the U.S., with more than 800 arrests.
Police officers and university administrators clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters, arresting students, removing encampments, and threatening academic consequences.
The wave of student activism against the war in Gaza was sparked by the arrests at Columbia University.
The protests, nearly seven months after the Israel-Hamas war began, emerged as the latest flashpoint in the internal Democratic debate over the war.
These demonstrations are exposing political tensions over how to balance free speech protections and support for Gazans with concerns that some Jewish Americans are raising about antisemitism.
The New York Times made a list of where arrests have been reported as the authorities attempt to break up protests or encampments:
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Columbia University: The New York City Police Department arrested 108 demonstrators while clearing an encampment at the Manhattan campus on April 18.
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Yale University in New Haven, Conn.: The police arrested 60 people on Monday, including 47 Yale students, after they refused to leave an encampment on campus.
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New York University in Manhattan: Officers made dozens of arrests late Monday after students occupied a plaza on campus.
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University of Minnesota in Minneapolis: Nine people were taken into custody after they erected an encampment on Tuesday. All of those affiliated with the university were allowed back on campus and civil trespass warnings were “set aside.”
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University of South Carolina in Columbia: Two students were arrested after a protest on Tuesday, according to a police report.
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University of Southern California in Los Angeles: The police arrested 93 people at a demonstration on Wednesday afternoon.
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University of Texas at Austin: The police arrested 57 protesters on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the county attorney’s office said charges against many had been dropped after the office found legal “deficiencies” in their arrests.
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Emerson College in Boston: The police arrested 118 people as an encampment was cleared on Wednesday night, the authorities said.
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Ohio State University in Columbus: A university official said that 36 people, including 16 students, were arrested on Thursday. Earlier in the week, two students were arrested during an on-campus demonstration, university officials said.
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Emory University in Atlanta: At least 28 people were arrested on Thursday morning, an Emory official said; 20 had ties to the school.
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Indiana University Bloomington: On Thursday, the university police said 33 people were removed from an encampment and taken to jail. There were 23 more arrests on Saturday, the police said.
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Princeton University in New Jersey: Two graduate students were arrested after pitching tents on Thursday.
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University of Connecticut in Storrs: Campus police officers removed at least one tent from a rally on Thursday and took at least one person into custody, a university official said.
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California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt: Protesters have occupied two buildings on the campus in Arcata, Calif., university officials said. Three people were arrested there this week.
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Auraria Campus in Denver: About 40 people were arrested on Friday at a campus that houses facilities for the University of Colorado Denver, the Metropolitan State University of Denver and the Community College of Denver, the campus police said.
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University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign: Social media posts on Friday showed police officers detaining at least one person and taking down an encampment.
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Arizona State University in Tempe: A university official said 69 people were arrested early Saturday after protesters set up an encampment. Three people were also arrested on Friday.
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Northeastern University in Boston: The Massachusetts State Police said that 102 protesters were arrested on Saturday. Earlier in the day, the university said that among those who were detained, students who showed their university IDs were released.
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Washington University in St. Louis: On Saturday, 100 arrests were made and the campus was locked down, according to a university statement. The presidential candidate Jill Stein was among the arrests.
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University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.: The university president’s office said that 12 people, including nine students, were arrested on Saturday evening.
Some media outlets reported that Jewish left-leaning billionaire George Soros and associations funded by him were reportedly funding the anti-Israel protests at college campuses across the US.
At Columbia University, three groups set up the tent city last Wednesday. These groups are Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Within Our Lifetime.
Tent cities called the ‘Liberated Zones’, also set in Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley in California as well as the Ohio State University and Emory in Georgia, have reportedly been organized by the student branches of the Soros-backed SJP.
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