NEW YORK –
Student protests over Israel’s war with Hamas that have been creating friction at American universities intensified Tuesday as new camps emerged and some universities encouraged students to stay home and learn online, after dozens of arrests. in all the country.
The protests had been in full swing for months, but accelerated after more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters who had camped out on Columbia University’s upper Manhattan campus were arrested last week.
As tensions at Columbia continue to rise and some students fear setting foot on campus, officials said the university will shift to hybrid learning for the remainder of the semester.
The protests have spread to other parts of New York and across the country. Many colleges have about two weeks of classes left before the semester ends and have been grappling with how to handle the protests.
Police said 133 protesters were detained Monday night after a protest at New York University and that all had been released with summonses to appear in court on disorderly conduct charges.
University spokesman John Beckman said New York University was continuing classes Tuesday.
California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt, announced its campus will be closed until Wednesday after protesters occupied a building Monday night. Classes would be held remotely, the school said on its website.
At the University of Michigan, protesters had set up more than 30 tents in the central part of the Ann Arbor campus, called the Diag.
In Connecticut, police arrested 60 protesters at Yale University on Monday, including 47 Yale students, after they refused to leave a camp at Beinecke Plaza.
Yale President Peter Salovey said protesters had rejected an offer to end the demonstration and meet with administrators, and after several warnings, school officials determined that “the situation was no longer safe” and police cleared the camp and made arrests.
At the University of Minnesota, nine anti-war protesters were arrested Tuesday morning after police broke up an encampment a couple of hours after it was set up in front of the library.
Since the war began, colleges and universities have struggled to balance security with the right to free speech. Many tolerated the protests for a long time, but are now imposing harsher discipline.
The protests have pitted students against each other, with pro-Palestinian students demanding that their schools condemn Israel’s attack on Gaza and divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel. Meanwhile, some Jewish students say much of the criticism of Israel has veered toward anti-Semitism.
As Donald Trump walked into a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday morning for his historic hush money trial, he spoke briefly to reporters and focused on the unrest on college campuses, blaming President Joe Biden.
“What’s happening is a disgrace to our country and it’s all Biden’s fault,” Trump said.
A day earlier, when asked if he condemned “the anti-Semitic protests,” Biden said yes.
“I also condemn those who do not understand what is happening to the Palestinians,” Biden said after an Earth Day event outside Washington.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said in a message to the school community on Monday that she was “deeply saddened” by what was happening on campus.
Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots football team and financed the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life across from the Columbia campus, said he would suspend donations to the university.
“I no longer trust Columbia to protect its students and staff and do not feel comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” he said in a statement.
Columbia University has a history of protests, most notably in 1968, when hundreds of students angry about racism and the Vietnam War occupied five campus buildings. After a week, a thousand police officers swept in and evicted them, making 700 arrests. The Associated Press reported at the time that 100 students and 15 police officers were injured.
The protests at universities began after Hamas’ deadly attack in southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took approximately 250 hostages. During the war that followed, Israel killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
Perry reported from Meredith, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Triangle, Virginia; Larry Lage in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.