Police arrested about 150 protesters at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale University and New York University on Monday night, while Columbia University announced that classes would be held remotely for the remainder of the semester as anger boiled over at major U.S. campuses.
Authorities arrested at least 47 protesters on the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut, on Monday night, the university said in a statement. Students arrested will be subject to disciplinary action.
Hundreds of people, including hunger strikers, protested on Yale University’s campus, demanding the university divest from military weapons manufacturers and other companies with ties to Israel. Yale said it had asked students multiple times to leave and warned them they could face law enforcement and discipline if they did not leave.
In downtown Manhattan, police clashed with protesters at New York University. There were reports that police used pepper spray when demonstrators tried to prevent a police car carrying detained students from leaving the scene, resulting in more than 100 arrests.
Shortly after nightfall, police responded to a camp near the university. There, hundreds of demonstrators also ignored warnings from the university that they would face consequences if they did not evacuate the square.
Videos on social media showed tense and sometimes chaotic scenes as police dismantled tents in a protest camp. Some police threw down tents and others scuffled with demonstrators.
Protesters clashed with police and chanted: “We won’t stop, we won’t rest. Reveal. Defund.”
An NYPD spokesman said some arrests were made after the school asked police to enforce trespassing violations, but the total number of arrests and citations won’t be known until much later.
A police crackdown followed a massive faculty strike at Columbia University on Monday in support of students arrested last week for organizing encampment protests and to demand that the elite university divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Bassam Khawaja, a lecturer at Columbia Law School and supervising attorney at the school’s human rights clinic, told the Guardian he was “shocked and appalled that the president immediately went to the NYPD.”
“By all accounts, this was a nonviolent protest,” he said. “A group of students were camping on the lawn in the middle of campus. It was no different from daily life on campus.
Students across the United States have staged solidarity protests in the wake of the Columbia University crackdown, with many calling on their universities to support a ceasefire in Gaza and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Students at Brown University, Princeton University and Northwestern University held protests on Friday and over the weekend.
Students at MIT and Emerson College in the Boston area have started their own protest camps.
Other institutions where protests have taken place include Boston University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Robert Kraft, a major donor to Columbia University and owner of the NFL’s Patriots, announced Monday that he would withdraw his support for the campus “until corrective measures are taken.”
Amid mixed views on Columbia University’s New York campus, some Jewish students joined pro-Palestinian protests, some stayed away and some said they felt unsafe.
Columbia University President Nemat Minouche Shafik last week called on New York police to clear a student tent encampment on his main lawn and demanded that the university divest from companies with ties to Israel.
She has been criticized for her failure to quell the growing protests and for the way she did so by calling on the city’s police department to arrest students. She has faced calls to resign from some members of Congress, mostly Republicans but also Democrats.
