More arrested in campus protests
AUSTIN, Texas — With graduations looming, student protesters doubled down early Thursday on their discontent of the Israel-hamas war on campuses across the country, with multiple arrests made at campuses in Massachusetts and California as universities have become quick to call in the police to end the demonstrations.
At Emerson College in Boston, 108 people were arrested and four police officers suffered injuries at an encampment, police said Thursday.
Another 93 were arrested Wednesday night during a protest at the University of Southern California, the Los Angeles Police Department said. There were no reports of injuries.
While grappling with growing protests from coast to coast, schools have the added pressure of May commencement ceremonies. At Columbia University in New York, students defiantly erected an encampment where many are set to graduate in front of families in just a few weeks.
Columbia continued to negotiate with students after several failed attempts — and over 100 arrests — to clear the encampment, but several universities ousted demonstrators Wednesday, swiftly turning to law enforcement when protests bubbled up on their campuses.
Earlier Wednesday, officers at the University of Texas at Austin aggressively detained dozens in the latest clashes between law enforcement and those protesting the Israel-hamas war on campuses nationwide.
Tensions were already high at USC after the university canceled a commencement speech by the school’s pro-palestinian valedictorian, citing safety concerns. After scuffles with police early Wednesday, a few dozen demonstrators standing in a circle with locked arms were detained without incident later in the evening.
Officers encircled the dwindling group sitting in defiance of an earlier warning to disperse or be arrested. Beyond the police line, hundreds of onlookers watched as helicopters buzzed overhead. The school closed the campus.
In Texas, hundreds of local and state police — including some on horseback and holding batons — bulldozed into protesters, at one point sending some tumbling into the street. Officers pushed their way into the crowd and made 34 arrests at the behest of the university and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott.
A photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin
was in the push-and-pull when an officer yanked him backward to the ground, video shows. The station confirmed that the photographer was arrested. A Texas journalist was knocked down in the mayhem and could be seen bleeding before police helped him to emergency medical staff.
Dane Urquhart, a third-year Texas student, called the police
presence and arrests an “overreaction,” adding that the protest “would have stayed peaceful” if the officers had not turned out in force.
“Because of all the arrests, I think a lot more (demonstrations) are going to happen,” Urquhart said.
Police left after hours of efforts to control the crowd, and about 300 demonstrators moved back in to sit on the grass and chant under the school’s iconic clock tower. In a statement Wednesday night, the university’s president, Jay Hartzell, said: “Our rules matter, and they will be enforced. Our University will not be occupied.”
North of USC, students at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, were barricaded inside a building for a third day, and the school shut down campus through the weekend and made classes virtual.
Students protesting the Israel-hamas war are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies enabling its conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus as graduation nears.