Protests in New York as US campuses brace for more unrest over Gaza war: Updates
Editor's Note: This page is a summary of news on student protests of the Israel-Hamas war for Tuesday, April 23. For the latest news see our live updates file for Wednesday, April 24.
NEW YORK ? Protests loomed and negotiations inched forward Tuesday at NYU, Columbia and elsewhere as colleges across the nation grappled with unrest after days of demonstrations, campus closures and arrests swirling around U.S. support for Israel in its war on Hamas.
The protests fueled a national debate over free speech and student demonstrations amid growing unrest over the fate of Palestinians in Gaza and concerns for the safety of Jewish students at home. Dozens of protesters were arrested Monday at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan.
Hundreds of students at Stanford University in Northern California held a walkout. At the University of California, Berkeley, students erected a Free Palestine Encampment. New York's Columbia University, the epicenter of the demonstrations, announced classes will provide a virtual learning option ? where technology permits ? until spring semester ends May 10.
"Safety is our highest priority as we strive to support our students’ learning and all the required academic operations," the university said in a statement.
The protests stem from the clash between Hamas and Israel, ignited by the militant group's assault on Israeli communities Oct. 7 that killed almost 1,200 people. Israel's subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians ? militants and civilians; men, women and children ? and fueled a dire humanitarian crisis.
Columbia cancels in-person classes: Protesters arrested at Yale and NYU
Developments:
? Student protesters inside the Columbia encampment barred the media from entering the space Tuesday. University administrators told USA TODAY it was up to students whether to allow in reporters, who spoke with student activists just outside the encampment.
? Hours after dozens of protesters were arrested Monday at Yale, Jews for Ceasefire held a "Seder in the Streets." Seder is a ritual dinner marking the start of Passover. The Yale encampment, set up last week, drew several hundred people calling on the university to drop investments to military weapons manufacturers.
? At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, about 25 tents housed students calling for the university to divest from Israeli investments. Palestinian flags waved around the square, with banners and signs bearing messages in support of Palestinians. Two large banners read: "Encampment For Gaza! Divest Now!" and "Long Live The Intifada (uprising)."
Columbia president: 'It is essential' that encampment be dismantled
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said Tuesday night that the actions taken by the university are justified.
"I fully support the importance of free speech, respect the right to demonstrate, and recognize that many of the protestors have gathered peacefully," Shafik said in an email obtained by USA TODAY that was sent to students and faculty. "However, the encampment raises serious safety concerns, disrupts campus life, and has created a tense and at times hostile environment for many members of our community. It is essential that we move forward with a plan to dismantle it."
She said a small group of university leaders have been speaking with student organizers "to discuss the basis for dismantling the encampment." Those talks are facing a deadline of midnight tonight to reach agreement, Shafik said.
Shafik added, "I very much hope these discussions are successful. If they are not, we will have to consider alternative options for clearing the west lawn and restoring calm to campus so that students can complete the term and graduate."
But a group called Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine released a statement late Tuesday and said that they refused to negotiate with university officials.
"Late tonight, Columbia University threatened (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) negotiators to call both the National Guard and NYPD if we do not acquiesce to their demands," the statement read, adding: "We remain steadfast in our convictions and will not be intimidated by the University's disturbing threat of an escalation of violence."
Last week, Shafik trekked to Washington for a congressional hearing about antisemitism on Columbia’s campus. She faced a salvo of tough questions from lawmakers expressing dismay about reports that Jewish students have felt unsafe since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
A similar hearing in December featuring the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania resulted in controversial clashes that ultimately cost them their jobs.
While Shafik was in Washington, students set up camps on lawns at the center of campus, demanding the university sever all its ties to Israel. The following morning, Shafik called in the New York City Police Department to clear out the demonstrators. Officers arrested more than 100 people. The rallies continued and Shafik essentially closed the campus Monday, ordering classes to be held remotely.
? Rachel Barber, Zachary Schermele
Jewish and Palestinian students address arrests, fear for safety
Several students who had been arrested by New York City police gathered outside the Columbia president’s residence a couple of blocks from the main campus on Tuesday afternoon. Police stood to the side as students took turns reading prepared remarks and responding to reporters’ questions.
Many of the arrested students are Jewish, and three Barnard students refuted the idea they were any less Jewish for protesting against Israel. “We have continually had to defend our religious identities, even when there's a long tradition behind them,” said student Sarah Borus, who also said she lost her housing after being arrested.
Marianne Hirsch, an English professor at Columbia who is also Jewish and teaches Holocaust studies, said the arrests of students and constant police presence “creates an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.”
“This is not what the university is about,” she said. “This amplifies divisions among students, amongst Jewish students.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student who is negotiating with Columbia on behalf of student organizers, said he had rarely spoken out before because he is on an F-1 student visa and feared deportation if he was arrested. But he said Palestinian and Arab students had also felt unsafe, in addition to fearing for their families back home.
“Columbia has not acknowledged this pain,” he said.
Students pledge to camp until Columbia cuts ties with Israel
Outside the Columbia encampment, students held a press conference to reiterate their demand that the university cut ties with Israel. Students entered and exited the space as classes continued Tuesday, now also available remotely.
“We have made it clear that we will be occupying this lawn until all of our demands are met,” Khymani James, a Columbia student and an encampment organizer, told reporters. He said the encampment has a lead negotiator with the university but declined to elaborate.
The demands include complete divestment from Israel, including a student-exchange program and Columbia's campus in Tel Aviv, as well as financial transparency for the school’s investments. The students also demand amnesty for the students and faculty disciplined or arrested from the demonstrations, including more than 100 detained Thursday.
Freshman Sebastian Verrelli said he was disappointed by the school's actions against the students, but to him the demonstrations highlight the role of academic institutions to challenge people’s beliefs. “This campus community has incredible strength and a willingness to engage in dialogue,” he said. “It's a reason why I chose to be here.”
In Berkeley, a growing but peaceful encampment
The number of tents grew overnight from 12 to 50 at the Free Palestine encampment at the University of California in Berkeley, according to Malak Afaneh, co-president of the Law Students for Justice in Palestine.
The site was bustling but peaceful Tuesday, as volunteers dropped off food and a group of preschoolers from Oakland and their teachers ate lunch and toured around the tents. Several speakers addressed a small crowd during the afternoon.
Afaneh said student protesters will remain onsite as they’re demanding the university call for an end to the war in Gaza and divests from defense contractors profiting from the conflict, including Boeing, BlackRock and Lockheed Martin. Protesters also want the university to sever ties with Israeli academic institutions and create policies to protect Palestinian students as well as create a Palestinian studies program.
“I am 100% fully confident that all of our goals for divestment will be achieved,” Afaneh said. “We’re going to be here come rain, sunshine, suspensions, expulsions, all of it.”
UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof said the school is keeping open communication with protest organizers, adding that Cal's top objective is "to ensure that students who want to attend classes and pursue their education can do so without interference and disruption.”
? Terry Collins
Dozens arrested near Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's home
Hundreds of people with the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace held a protest Tuesday evening at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, just down the street from the home of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. Along with ongoing student demonstrations across universities in New York City, Jewish Voice for Peace’s rally protested against the impending congressional bill to fund billions of aid to Israel.
The group held a symbolic Seder meal on the second day of the Passover holiday. People sat around a large illustration of ritual food for the meal. In addition to Jewish staples for the plate, the illustration added added items of olives and strawberries, symbolizing food representative of Palestine.
By nightfall, the group blocked traffic around Grand Army Plaza, bringing cars and buses to a standstill as police responded. The group has led prior actions at Grand Central Terminal and elsewhere in New York City that have resulted in hundreds of prior arrests.
In the roadway near Grand Army Plaza, police began pulling dozens of people, young and old, off the roadway, handcuffing them with zip ties, and loading them on at least six buses that lined down the street. Organizers said the act was meant to send a message from Jewish Americans who feel their identity is being used to justify funding to Israel's war by American politicians.
“Our actions have to build,” Stefanie Fox, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, told USA TODAY as police cleared people from the street. “We have an obligation.”
As police lined up the last of the demonstrators to place them on buses, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed the $95 billion foreign aid package. About $17 billion of the aid goes to Israel, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed the $95 billion foreign aid package. About $17 billion of the aid goes to Israel.
? Eduardo Cuevas
NYU protest with union presence rips arrests, school president
An NYU protest kicked off midafternoon in lower Manhattan's Washington Square Park, a quasi-center for university life. Off to the side of the park's famous fountain, a group of speakers led a medium-size crowd in chants like "Linda Mills you're a liar," referring to the school's president. They also instructed those in attendance not to speak to reporters who weren't vetted.
The crowd, which included not only students but also NYU employees and some of their children, heard about the arrests and strong police presence from the previous night.
"We had members, faculty who were arrested last night because management turned the NYPD on peacefully demonstrating students and faculty, which they then disingenuously justified by saying that there were outside agitators," said Charles Gelman, 36, an adjunct faculty member at NYU.
Many signs read "UAW for a permanent cease-fire" over the backdrop of the Palestinian flag. The Academics Come Together-United Auto Workers Local 7902 represents more than 4,000 adjunct professors, educators and health care workers at NYU and the New School, its website says.
"In part we are trying to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian trade unions who have called for support from fellow unions internationally to do what we can to stop the flow of weapons, especially from the United States to Israel, that are destroying homes, families and lives in Gaza and in the West Bank," said Gelman, an ACT-UAW member.
MIT students have Passover Seder on lawn
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts – At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, students have been camping out on a lawn outside the student center since Sunday. As darkness fell Tuesday night, they were nearing the end of a Passover Seder, with the Jewish students teaching the non-Jews about their tradition.
Graduate student David Berkinsky, who had defended his PhD thesis in physical chemistry a day earlier, said some of the students had been in tears as they shared the meaning of the holiday, which celebrates the liberation of Jews from Egypt thousands of years ago.
“That story doesn’t end with the liberatory struggle of the Jewish people, but it extends to all the liberatory struggles and that includes the Palestinian people, of course,” said Berkinsky, who belongs to Jews for Ceasefire, part of the MIT Coalition for Palestine.
The broader group wants MIT to cut its ties to companies that make military equipment Israel has used against Palestinians in Gaza, Berkinsky said.
While he spoke, about a dozen students sang traditional Passover songs and danced in a circle, as a student wearing an Orthodox Jewish head-covering and scarf played the clarinet. Many of the students, clearly singing the songs for the first time, stumbled and laughed their way through the lyrics. “There’s obviously a lot of joy we have together,” Berkinsky said. “This is a struggle we’re committed to.”
? Karen Weintraub
At Columbia, police helicopters part of daily life
Columbia University graduate student Layla Saliba said pro-Palestinian student groups set up tents on campus because they felt protest rallies and walkouts were ignored by administrators. Saliba, who is with the group Columbia University Apartheid Divestment, said multiple student groups, which include many Jewish students, want Columbia to withdraw its investments in companies that profit from the war in Gaza.
Students also want school suspensions to be revoked for some who received them after campus demonstrations in recent months.
Saliba, 24, said a handful of police helicopters and drones fly over the encampment areas daily. “I don’t like it, it makes me feel like I’m a zoo animal. Especially because we’re not doing anything wrong,” she said.
This week, some of Saliba’s friends were arrested for holding signs on campus, she said. Saliba said she hasn’t heard of any instances of pro-Palestinian students targeting Jewish students and said many students from different religious backgrounds feel scared of the large police presence.
“When you have armored vehicles, that’s going to make it tense for everyone,” she said.
? Claire Thornton
Antisemitism, reasons for protests should both be recognized, official says
At a security entrance to Columbia, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams went into the campus just after a student, wearing a kippah head covering, was turned back by campus security and told to return to Barnard’s campus across the street.
Williams, a Democratic city official, said the student told him the campus felt less safe with the heightened police and security presence. Inside, Williams said he saw peaceful students at the encampment at the center of campus.“It’s the fact that people are standing up for Palestinians in Gaza,” Williams said. “And I really think that makes people uneasy.”Williams said he spoke with students who felt uneasy because they sensed antisemitism, some from people off campus. Williams said the presence of antisemitism should be acknowledged, as well as the reasons why many are protesting the war in Gaza.
“Just saying cease-fire can’t be antisemitic,” he said.
NYU under fire for calling in police
Mills said she brought in police to NYU after protesters breached barriers with "disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behavior that interfered with the safety and security of our community." She said many refused to leave.
NYU's professor association issued a statement Tuesday calling much of the account false and blasting the administration for bringing in the police. The statement said the protest was loud, but there was no intimidation "other than by NYPD," which the group said, "made arrests in an especially rough manner" and pepper sprayed a student who was taking pictures. NYPD did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.
Spencer Mulvaney, 20, a sophomore film major at NYU, said she found the administration's actions "upsetting."
"The protests that occurred were nonviolent and contained," she said. "Yet the police incited fear and used force ... as someone yelled, 'These are kids!'"
New York University sees brief quiet after Monday protests
New York University’s Manhattan campus was quiet early Tuesday following pro-Palestinian demonstrations that led to scores of arrests a day earlier. Outside the Stern business school, cameras were trained on a set of barricades while a man held a sign reading, “Israel kills 1400 kids.”
Nearby, Nikhil Chirumamilla, a senior studying dramatic writing, looked on. He saw the protests Monday but chose not to get involved when he spotted police in riot gear. Referencing an email NYU President Linda Mills sent out in the aftermath, he said her reasoning for the response seemed “flimsy.”
“I feel like the university response was a bit dramatic. I think it was peaceful protest," Chirumamilla said, adding that the university is "clear on their position on the matter. They’re not as open to pro-Palestinian voices on campus."
Columbia sociology professors defy university administration on student suspensions
Members of the Columbia University Department of Sociology say they were alarmed by the university’s actions in recent days, including calling police on peaceful student demonstrators on campus last week, resulting in over 100 people getting arrested. Police have said there was no credible threat to safety from the campus protests.
The sociology professors issued a statement Tuesday saying the suspensions of students arrested was “irregular, unnecessary and resting on shaky legal ground." The educators called on the school to reverse the suspensions and allow the students to return to the campus and to classes.
“For our own part, as members of the faculty of the department of sociology, we will continue to keep our courses open to these students, we will grade their exams and papers, and we will give them final grades in our courses so they may receive credit,” the statement said.
Education Secretary Cardona backs free speech but 'won't tolerate harassment'
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called for calm in a social media post Tuesday, saying universities "are at their best when they promote the respectful exchange of diverse views and constructive debate." The Education department's Office for Civil Rights interprets the laws it enforces consistent with free speech and other First Amendment rights, he said.
"But we won’t tolerate hate or harassment that targets students because of who they are or who they’re perceived to be," Cardona said.
Columbia Jewish student group cites 'climate of repression'
The Columbia chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace accused the university of creating "a climate of repression and harm for students peacefully protesting for an end of the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza." The group said in a statement Monday that students have faced physical attacks and hate speech by faculty and staff. The university has actively created a "hostile environment" for Palestinian students and their supporters while making the campus "much less safe" for Jewish students.
"The administration has not only harassed Jewish students and failed to ensure their safety and well-being, it has also obstructed their religious observances," the statement said.
Contributing: Niraj Warikoo and Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press; Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israeli war fuels protests at Columbia, other colleges: Updates
