LOS ANGELES − Police in riot gear swept onto the UCLA campus Thursday and tore down makeshift barricades and a pro-Palestinian encampment that had drawn hundreds of protesters and was attacked by counterprotesters earlier this week.
The predawn crackdown at UCLA marked the latest flashpoint for protests scattered across U.S. colleges amid mounting anger over Israel’s war in Gaza and growing impatience on the part of school administrators to allow disruptions they say make their campuses unsafe.
At UCLA, officers made several arrests and scuffled with student demonstrators who had enforced a strict code of no violence throughout a protest that drew several hundred people. By dawn, police had cleared the plaza of the tents and plywood walls that had formed the camp for a week, but a smaller group of protesters remained assembled just outside that area.
California Highway Patrol spokesperson Alejandro Rubio told the Associated Press that 132 arrests were made on the UCLA campus during an operation involving about 250 officers.
Political science major Jonathan Giang, 22, was sitting on steps near where the encampment had been. He heard students were regrouping before trying to reestablish it but said he hadn’t seen much evidence of that. Giang said he was sorry to see the police clamp down but also relieved the encampment was removed.
“At least I know my friends aren’t getting hurt anymore,” Giang said. “I know students are having issues getting through midterms and classes. Now maybe things can go back to a sense of normal.”
UCLA canceled Wednesday classes after counterdemonstrators battered a makeshift barricade around the encampment. Chancellor Gene Block, who blamed the violence on a “group of instigators,” said the student conduct process has been initiated and could lead to disciplinary action, including suspension or expulsion. All classes pivoted to remote learning Thursday and Friday, the school said.
The protests stem from concerns for civilian deaths in Gaza during the Israeli-Hamas war that began Oct. 7 when about 1,200 people in southern Israel were killed and more than 200 taken hostage in a Hamas-led attack.
Developments:
∎ A “large demonstration” was underway on the College Green at the University of Pennsylvania, the school’s public safety office said in a campus alert, urging people to avoid the area and saying police were at the scene. A Gaza Solidarity encampment was set up last week.
∎ Officials at the University of California in Berkeley have opened talks with student leaders regarding the encampment set up in front of the school’s Sproul Hall since April 22, the Daily Californian campus newspaper reported. The school said “skirmishes” at the site between protesters and counterdemonstrators Wednesday evening resulted in three people sustaining minor injuries.
∎ Florida Chancellor Ray Rodrigues has told state university presidents not to cancel or modify commencement ceremonies because of “unruly” demonstrators. “While we are witnessing a descent into chaos all over the country, under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida has maintained law and order,” Rodrigues wrote in a memo to the presidents.
∎ Students at several French universities, including La Sorbonne and Sciences Po, have barricaded or occupied areas of their schools in protest of the war in Gaza.
Biden speaks out on college protests:‘Violence is not protected’
University of Minnesota, protesters reach deal
Pro-Palestinian supporters agreed to remove their four-day encampment at the University of Minnesota following an agreement made with school leadership. Interim University President Jeff Ettinger agreed to “facilitate conversations” with the career services department in response to the coalition’s demand to ban companies that do business with Israel from attending campus events and partaking in job fairs.
Ettinger will also recommend the University of Minnesota Police Department not arrest or press charges against anyone on a criminal offense as a result of the demonstrations and allow the organizing coalition to address the Board of Regents on May 10 concerning its demand that the university divest from Israel.
Northwestern University and Brown University are among other schools that have resolved the protests through negotiations. The Minnesota deal “grew out of a desire among those involved to reach shared understanding,’ Ettinger said in a letter to the university community. “While we do not condone tactics that are outside of our policies, we appreciate student leaders’ willingness to engage in dialogue.”
− Sam Woodward, USA TODAY NETWORK
Biden says speech is protected but not ‘chaos’
President Joe Biden condemned violence and destruction on college campuses while defending the right for pro-Palestinian protesters to peacefully demonstrate in his first public address on this week’s unrest on college campuses. Biden, in previously unscheduled remarks Thursday from the White House Roosevelt Room, called peaceful protest “in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues,” but he said “violent protest is not protected.”
“Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows shutting down campuses, forcing the cancelation of classes and graduations, none of this is a peaceful protest,” Biden said. “There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos.”
Biden said he does not believe governors should call out the National Guard to quell the protests and that the demonstrations have not compelled him to reconsider his Middle East policies.
− Joey Garrison and Francesca Chambers
Pulitzer Prize Board lauds student journalists covering protests
The Pulitzer Prize Board recognized student journalists across the country who are covering protests in the midst of “great personal and academic risk,” according to a statement released Thursday by the organization that awards journalism’s highest honor.
“We would also like to acknowledge the extraordinary real-time reporting of student journalists at Columbia University, where the Pulitzer Prizes are housed, as the New York Police Department was called onto campus on Tuesday night,” the board’s statement said. “In the spirit of press freedom, these students worked to document a major national news event under difficult and dangerous circumstances and at risk of arrest.”
Finalists and winners for the Pulitzer Prizes are set to be announced Monday at Columbia. The campus remained closed to outside press Thursday. Access has been heavily restricted, with the campus only open to students living on campus and essential personnel. This doesn’t include most faculty.
− Eduardo Cuevas
All quiet at Columbia University
More than a dozen law enforcement officers and security personnel remained posted Thursday along the metal barricades at and around the Columbia University gate where pro-Palestinian protesters were taken into custody Tuesday night.
Outside Hamilton Hall, which was occupied by protesters early Tuesday, some people waited in line at a checkpoint to enter campus. The encampment that made Columbia the epicenter of campus protests across the nation lasted nearly two weeks before being taken down by police Tuesday.
The semester’s remaining classes and final exams will be conducted online, the school’s provost said Wednesday. Graduation is set for May 15, and university President Minouche Shafik has requested police maintain a presence on campus through at least May 17.
− N’dea Yancey-Bragg
Professors association lends support to protesters
Members of the Columbia University chapter of the American Association of University Professors “unequivocally condemn” the school administration’s decision this week to summon the NYPD to remove student protesters from campus, the group said in a social media post Thursday. The group demanded the campus be immediately reopened to faculty, staff and students and that the NYPD be withdrawn.
The national chapter issued a statement in defense of the protests nationwide: “The AAUP and its chapters defend the right to free speech and peaceful protest on university campuses, condemn the militarized response by institutional leaders to these activities and vehemently oppose the politically motivated assault on higher education.”
Alums, political landscape raised pressure on Columbia president
A few days ago, Shafik indicated she had no intention of bringing police back to respond to pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia. Doing so would be “counterproductive, further inflaming what is happening on campus, and drawing thousands to our doorstep who would threaten our community,” she wrote in a message signed by other school leaders.
But many alumni were clearly alarmed by what they were seeing, and so was New York City Mayor Eric Adams. By Tuesday night, the president had changed her mind. New York Police Department officers descended on campus en masse and for the second time arrested scores of protesters.
Shafik had to assess the political landscape, said Lincoln Mitchell, an adjunct associate professor of political science at Columbia. “If you get an alumni base angry, you’re done,” he said.
− Zachary Schermele
Alumni pressure, crime-fighting mayor:Both helped set the stage for Columbia arrests
Police clear protesters from occupied library at Portland State
Portland State University’s campus in Oregon was closed Thursday because of an “ongoing incident at library,” the school said in a social media post, and at 10:17 a.m. the Portland Police Bureau announced it had cleared protesters who had occupied the facility since Monday.
“We have found caches of tools, what appears to be improvised weapons, ball bearings, paint balloons, spray bottles of ink, and DIY armor,” the PPB said on the X platform. “None of this was used on police.” The bureau said in another posting that 12 people were arrested, four of them Portland State students.
Earlier this week the school asked police to help remove dozens of protesters occupying the building. Last week the university paused seeking or accepting gifts or grants from Boeing pending a review of weapons sales to Israel.
Columbia faculty, students protest:Campus protests intensify
Almost half of NYC protesters arrested not affiliated with schools, reports say
New York Mayor Eric Adams, in an interview Thursday with NPR, said more than 40% of those arrested Tuesday at Columbia and City College of New York protests were not affiliated with either school.
CNN, citing an NYPD official, said 134 of the 282 arrested (more than 47%) had no affiliation to the schools The official said 80 people arrested at Columbia, both inside Hamilton Hall and at nearby protests, were affiliated with the university in some way while 32 were not. At CCNY, 68 people arrested were affiliated while 102 were not, the official said.
The NYPD official told CNN the department was able to determine the breakdowns by cross-checking records with the universities.
First flash bangs, then the dismantling began
Hours before the move to dismantle the UCLA encampment at Dickson Plaza, officers in tactical gear began filing onto the campus as protesters chanted “Peaceful protest” and “We’re not leaving!” and “Who do you protect?” and “Where were you last night?”
Twice before the main push, officers attempted to gain ground inside the encampment in the early hours Thursday, only to be fended off by protesters, some holding umbrellas and homemade wooden shields.
Shortly after 4 a.m., officers started firing flash bangs into the sky above the protest every few seconds, as deafening bangs echoed. Police then dismantled the main barricade piece-by-piece before moving in as a unit and systematically driving students out of the plaza, arresting those who did not comply.
Some demonstrators tried to push back and shine bright lights at the officers, while others surrendered and were ushered away by police. A USA TODAY reporter witnessed one man gushing blood from a head wound who was rushed by protesters to the medic’s tent, where he was bandaged up before being helped away.
“The UCLA administration has decided to take an approach of criminalizing students who are here trying to talk about what’s going on in Gaza and to talk about Palestinians’ lives,” Graeme Blair, an associate professor of political science and member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine at UCLA, told USA TODAY. “If our mission is a teaching mission, I can’t understand why they would choose to take the actions they have over the last 48 hours.”
Hundreds face charges across nation but will charges stick?
Hundreds of U.S. college students arrested this week while protesting the war in Gaza face criminal charges amid encampments, building takeovers and civil unrest. But how those charges play out remains a key question. On Tuesday night, New York police arrested nearly 300 people at Columbia University and the City College of New York. A day earlier, clashes with protesters at the University of Texas in Austin resulted in 79 arrests. Tulane University said 14 protesters were arrested at an “illegal encampment” on the New Orleans campus.
And officers made at least 70 arrests late last week and over the weekend at Arizona State University. But scores of cases at other universities have already been dropped.
Richard Serafini, a South Florida criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, explained that with hundreds of arrests at a mass protest, prosecutors still “have to be able to have the evidence” against each individual.
“You can’t charge someone who just happened to be there,” he said.
− Cybele Mayes-Osterman and Asher Stockler
What are college protests across the US about?
The student protesters opposed to Israel’s military attacks in Gaza say they want their schools to stop funneling endowment money to Israeli companies and other businesses, like weapons manufacturers, that profit from the war in Gaza. In addition to divestment, protesters are calling for a cease-fire, and student governments at some colleges have also passed resolutions in recent weeks calling for an end to academic partnerships with Israel. The protesters also want the U.S. to stop supplying funding and weapons to the war effort.
More recently, amnesty for students and professors involved in the protests has become an issue. Protesters want protections amid threats of disciplinary action and termination for those participating in demonstrations that may violate campus policy or local laws.
− Claire Thornton
Campus protests across the US:Hundreds were arrested. But will the charges stick?
Contributing: Reuters
