Anti-war protesters on campus are taking a strong stance against the police

Students protesting the war between Israel and Hamas woke up in tents on college campuses nationwide Sunday morning, he plans more protests demanding that Schools have severed financial ties to Israel and divest from companies accused of enabling the conflict.

Decisions to involve police, which have led to hundreds of arrests across the country, have also drawn negative reactions from protesters. The tensions have increased pressure on school officials, who are working to resolve the May protests graduation ceremonies near.

School faculty members from universities in California, Georgia and Texas have initiated or passed motions of no confidence against their leadership. They are largely symbolic rebukes, without the power to impeach their presidents.

Early protests at Columbia University in New York City led to protests pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country and students and administrators there have started negotiations, the university said in a statement on Saturday evening.

Columbia has set a series of deadlines for protesters to leave the camp — which they missed — but bringing back police “at this time” would be counterproductive, the school wrote in an email to students.

Washington University in St. Louis closed down some campus buildings and arrested protesters on Saturday.

The Riverfront Times, a St. Louis weekly, reported that more than 80 people were arrested during the protest that started in public areas before moving to campus in the afternoon. Megan Green, president of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, said in a social media post that she was present and that the protest remained calm “until the police came in as an ambush.”

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said in a social media post that she and two of her campaign managers were among those arrested on the Washington University campus.

St. Louis police said in a social media post that they were assisting campus police, although city officials made no arrests.

The University of Southern California said Saturday that it had temporarily closed the University Park Campus to non-residents and that USC property was being vandalized by members of a group “that has continued to camp illegally on our campus,” disrupting operations and people are being harassed.

Students refused attempts by university President Carol Folt to meet, and the administration is hoping for “a more reasonable response Sunday before we are forced to take further action,” said Joel Curran, senior vice president of communications.

The USC was criticized after refusing to allow the farewell address, who has publicly supported the Palestinian cause, to deliver a commencement address. Administrators then canceled filmmaker Jon M. Chu’s keynote speech. The school announced this on Thursday cancellation of the main graduation eventa day after more than 90 protesters were arrested by police in riot gear.

Folt, the university president, made her first public statement late Friday, calling the controversies “incredibly difficult for all of us.”

In Boston, police in riot gear cleared an encampment on the campus of Northeastern University on Saturday.

Massachusetts State Police said about 102 protesters have been arrested and will be charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Northeastern said in a statement that the demonstration, which began two days ago, was “infiltrated by professional organizers” with no ties to the university and used anti-Semitic slurs, including “kill the Jews.”

“We cannot tolerate this type of hate on our campus,” the statement on social media said.

The student group Huskies for a Free Palestine disputed the university’s statement, saying in a statement that counter-protesters were responsible for the insults and that no student demonstrators “repeated the disgusting hate speech.”

Students at the Boston protest said a counter-protester tried to incite hate speech but insisted their event was peaceful and, like many across the country, aimed to draw attention to what they described as the “genocide” in Gaza and their university’s complicity in the war. .

The president of the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a statement Saturday that an encampment there had become a “potential magnet for disruptive protesters from outside” and that it took hundreds of staff hours to keep safe.

Indiana University campus officers and state police arrested 23 people Saturday at an encampment on the school’s Bloomington campus. Tents and canopies were erected Friday in violation of school policy and group members were arrested after refusing to remove the structures with charges ranging from criminal trespass to resisting law enforcement, police said.

Arizona State University said 69 people were arrested early Saturday on suspicion of criminal trespass for setting up an unauthorized encampment on a grassy area on its Tempe campus. The demonstrators were given the opportunity to leave and those who refused were arrested.

The nationwide campus protests began in response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza. Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. Israel pledged to eradicate Hamas and launched an offensive in Gaza. In the ensuing war, Israel killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as anti-Semitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such accusations to silence opponents. Although some demonstrators have been caught on camera making anti-Semitic comments or violent threats, protest organizers, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.

Casey reported from Boston and Thompson from Buffalo, NY Associated Press journalists in various locations contributed including Jacques Billeaud, Aaron Morrison, Stefanie Dazio, Kathy McCormack, Jim Vertuno, Acacia Coronado, Sudhin Thanawala, Jeff Amy, Jeff Martin, Mike Stewart , Collin Binkley, Carolyn Thompson, Jake Offenhartz, Jesse Bedayn and Sophia Tareen.