Hundreds arrested as US police crack down on pro-Palestinian campus protests

Students chant during a protest against the war in Gaza at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia – ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

A philosophy professor was among hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters arrested on university campuses across the United States as police toughened up their approach to the demonstrations.

Protesting students have set up camps at more than 20 US universities in defiance of police warnings, including in the capital, where eight higher education institutions began a combined demonstration at George Washington University – less than a mile from the White House.

A placard hangs from a statue of George Washington at George Washington University, less than a mile from the White House – SAUL LOEB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Since the first encampment on the lawns of New York’s Columbia University last week, more tents have been erected at some of the leading institutions in the country, including Harvard, Yale and the University of Michigan.

Georgia police officers fired rubber bullets and tasers at protesters who gathered at Emory University in Atlanta. Photographs and video showed police wrestling with protesters on neatly manicured lawns.

Prof Noelle McAfee is led away by a police officer at Emory University, Atlanta – TWITTER/X

Among those arrested was Professor Noelle McAfee, the chairman of the university’s philosophy department, who was filmed being led away by a balaclava-clad police officer.

As police in riot gear attempted to clear a gathering at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin on Wednesday, there were clashes leading to 57 arrests.

Hundreds of police officers descended on the students at the University of Texas in Austin – MIKALA COMPTON/AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN VIA AP

Jay Hartzell, the UT Austin president, defended calling in state troopers, saying: “The university did as we said we would do in the face of prohibited actions.”

But Dane Urquhart, a third-year Texas student, called the police presence and arrests an “over-reaction”, claiming 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,” said Mr Urquhart.

Police made 93 arrests at the University of Southern California after they warned protesters to disperse. The university said it asked officers to intervene after the protests devolved into vandalism and confrontations.

Administrators also cancelled the main May 10 graduation ceremony, saying newly-required security measures would have placed excessive delays on crowd control.

Four officers were injured and 108 people arrested at Emerson College in Boston as baton-wielding police tried to disperse protesters.

In neighbouring Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard authorities opted for a less confrontational approach by turning on sprinklers and soaking the protesters during their first night in tents.

An aerial view of the encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts – BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS

Across the country, groups of students and activists are calling on the leadership of their universities to cut financial ties with Israel and demand an end to war in Gaza.

Demonstrations have escalated over the past week following the arrest of more than 100 protesters at Columbia’s Manhattan campus.

Protests continued on Thursday at Columbia University in New York, where students set up the first encampment in the US – FATIH AKTAS/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES

Other colleges with camps now include the University of California, Berkeley, Brown, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.

An encampment has also been set up at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of  Israel, described the protests as “horrific”.

“Anti-Semitism on campuses in the United States is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. The world cannot stand idly by,” he said. “It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally.”

As protests continued at Columbia on Thursday, Baroness Shafik, the president of the university, received a vote of confidence from the institution’s board of trustees.

It followed a call from Mike Johnson, the US House of Representatives Speaker, for the British-American academic to resign over the rise in anti-Semitism on campus, where Jewish students had been told not to attend in-person classes.

The New York Post reported on Thursday that Columbia’s pro-Palestine protesters were stocking up on Pret-A-Manger sandwiches and $17 jars of nuts as they showed “no signs of abandoning their makeshift tent city”.

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