Isabel Ravenna

Discord over the current war in Gaza escalated at universities across the United States early this week when pro-Palestinian protesters rushed a building on the Columbia campus in New York. Officials suspended access to the Portland State University campus as a result of students breaking into the library. Police officers also arrested more protesters on campuses in North Carolina and California.

“Students on Columbia’s campus are expressing frustration with the university’s response to the protests, particularly an apparently last-minute decision to close Butler Library during finals week,” Journalist Karla Marie Sanford reported from Columbia University. “One freshman said he was more inconvenienced by the closing of Butler than the encampment outside it.”

Encampments have been rising across American universities and officials affectively ended the eight-day occupation of admin. building at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. And encampments at multiple universities, including Yale have been apparently evacuated.

“There are still about 80 tens in the main pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University, but the student numbers appear to be very low at this point, our reporters on campus say” Journalist Sharon Otterman reported this morning. “It also appears that some of the copious food supplies from the main encampment have been moved to Hamilton to support the group that has taken over the hall.”

Demonstrators occupied Hamilton Hall at Columbia University early on Tuesday. Hours before, administrators announced the suspension of students who refused to abandon their encampments that had been conserved for about two weeks.

As police officers and university administrators clash with the pro-Palestinian demonstrators, students have been arrested, encampments have been removed and academic consequences were threatened.

Reported arrests as in an attempt to break up protests or encampments:

• New York City police arrested 108 demonstrators while clearing an encampment at Columbia University’s Manhattan campus on April 18.
• Police arrested 48 people, including 44 Yale students, for refusing to leave a campus encampment at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on April 22.
• Officers arrested dozens late on April 22 after students occupied a plaza in New York University in Manhattan.
• Nine people were taken into custody Tuesday after erecting an encampment at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Those affiliated with the university were allowed back on campus, and civil trespass warnings were set aside.
• Two students were arrested after a protest Tuesday at University of South Carolina in Columbia, a police report stated.
• Police arrested 57 protesters Wednesday at University of Texas at Austin; charges were later dropped for many due to legal “deficiencies,” according to a county attorney’s office spokeswoman.
• Police arrested 118 at Emerson College in Boston as they cleared an Emerson College encampment Wednesday night, authorities reported.
• A university official reported that 36 people, including 16 students, were arrested Thursday at Ohio State University in Columbus. Two students were previously arrested during an on-campus demonstration earlier in the week.
• At least 28 people were arrested Thursday morning at Emory University in Atlanta; 20 were affiliated with the university, an official said.
• University police removed 33 people from an encampment at Indiana University Bloomington and jailed them Thursday; 23 more arrests occurred Saturday.
• Two graduate students were arrested Thursday from Princeton University in New Jersey after pitching tents.
• Campus police removed at least one tent from a rally Thursday in Storrs (University of Connecticut) and took at least one person into custody, a university official reported.
• Protesters have occupied two buildings on the California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt campus in Arcata, Calif. Three people were arrested there this week, university officials said.
• About 40 people were arrested Friday on a campus shared by the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the Community College of Denver, campus police reported.
• Social media posts on Friday showed police detaining at least one person at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and dismantling an encampment.
• A university official reported that 69 people were arrested early Saturday after setting up an encampment at Arizona State University in Tempe; three were arrested Friday.
• University officials, citing a police report, said that 98 people were arrested Saturday, including 29 students and six faculty and staff of Northeastern University in Boston.
• According to a Washington University in St. Louis university statement, 100 arrests were made, and the campus was locked down Saturday. Presidential candidate Jill Stein was among those arrested.
• The University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va. president’s office reported that 12 people, including nine students, were arrested Saturday evening.
• Virginia Tech University officials said Monday that 82 protesters, 53 of whom are students, were arrested and charged with trespassing.