The Ohio State University joined the growing list of the university protests Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. Clashes between protesters and police on campus overnight led to more than a dozen arrests.
Those who refused to leave after the warnings were arrested and charged with criminal trespass, university spokesman Benjamin Johnson said, citing rules prohibiting late-night events.
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Like the the death toll rises in Gaza war and worsening humanitarian crisis, protesters at universities across the country demand schools cut financial ties in Israel and divest from companies they say are facilitating the conflict. Some Jewish students say that you protest they have gone astray antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus, which in part led to calls for police intervention.
Saar Noy Zylberman, a Jewish student at Columbia University in New York City who grew up in Israel, told CBS News correspondent Nancy Chen on Thursday that many students knew people at the music festival who were targeted of the deadly terrorist attack by Hamas last year.
“And adding to that the situation where people are shouting hate speech that has verbally and physically harassed and attacked people, it just makes it impossible to be here,” Zylberman told Chen.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said police officers were hit with bottles and other objects in some of the protests this week. He blamed outside agitators for joining with genuine protesters. Officials at Emory University in Atlanta and the University of Texas at Austin have said that not everyone at their schools' protests were students and that outside groups started or joined the demonstrations.
In Emory, local and state police intervened Thursday to dismantle an encampment. Some officers were carrying semi-automatic weapons, and the video shows officers appearing to use a stun gun on a protester they had pinned to the ground. The university said Thursday afternoon that objects were thrown at officers and that they deployed “chemical irritants” as a crowd control measure.
Jail records showed 22 people arrested by Emory police were charged with disorderly conduct. Emory said 28 people were reported arrested, including 20 members of the university community, and some were released.
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In Texas, the UT Austin campus was much quieter Thursday after 57 people they were imprisoned and charged with criminal trespass a day earlier, when state police in riot gear and on horseback swept through protesters.
Both police and protesters have crossed a line at times, said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
“You don't have a blanket First Amendment right to, you know, turn a public area of a campus into a campground,” Lukianoff told CBS News. “But we've certainly seen in places like Emory and places like UT Austin, the police take things way, way too far.”
At UT Austin, officials have removed barricades and allowed protesters to enter the main plaza under the school's iconic clock tower. The Travis County District Attorney's Office, which prosecutes misdemeanors, dropped 46 cases stemming from Wednesday's protests after finding deficiencies in probable cause affidavits, a spokesman said in a statement.
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Most of the protesters arrested have not been charged with violent crimes, but there have been several instances of threatening and abusive behavior.
After an encampment of tents appeared Thursday at Indiana University Bloomington, police with shields and batons pushed back protesters and arrested 33. Hours later at the University of Connecticut, police tore down tents and arrested a person
The clock is ticking as the May commencement ceremonies approach, increasing the pressure on schools to clean up the demonstrations. In Columbia, protesters defiantly erected a tent camp where many will graduate in front of their families in a few weeks.
Columbia officials said negotiations showed progress as the school settled early Friday limit date reaching an agreement on the dismantling of the camp went back and forth. However, two police buses were parked nearby and there was a noticeable presence of private security and police at the campus entrances.
“We have our demands; they have theirs,” Columbia University spokesman Ben Chang said, adding that if talks fail, the university will have to consider other options.
Shortly after midnight, a group of about three dozen pro-Palestinian protesters handed out signs and began chanting outside the closed doors of Columbia University. They then left as at least 40 police officers gathered nearby.
On Friday morning, hundreds of counter-protesters gathered in the streets outside Columbia, many carrying Israeli flags and calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas and other militants.
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California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt, has been negotiating with students who have been barricaded inside a campus building since Monday, rebuffing an attempt by police to clear them. Teachers met with protesters Thursday to try to negotiate a campus-like solution remains closed at least during the weekend.
A dean of the school, Jeff Crane, suggested during the meeting that the university form a committee that would include students to look into the school's investments. Crane also suggested that faculty and students continue to meet every 24 hours to keep an open line of communication. The parties have not yet announced a settlement.
The school's faculty and staff senate demanded the resignation of the university's president in a motion of no confidence on Thursday, citing the decision to call the police to remove some barricaded students on Monday.
At the other end of the state, the University of Southern California canceled the school's graduation ceremony on May 10. The announcement came a day after more than 90 protesters were arrested on campus. The university said it will still host dozens of commencement events, including all traditional individual school commencement ceremonies.
Tensions were already high after USC canceled a commencement speech provided by the school pro-palestinian valedictorianciting security issues.
At the City College of New York on Thursday, hundreds of students who had gathered on the lawn below the famous Gothic buildings of the Harlem campus erupted in cheers after a small contingent of police officers retreated from the scene . In a corner of the quad, a “safety training” has taken place among the students.
Elsewhere in the city, a dozen protesters spent the night in tents and sleeping bags inside a building of the Fashion Institute of Technology. The institute's museum, which is housed in the building where protesters set up camp, was closed Friday.
Protesters also spent the night at the George Washington University campus, according to local news stations. In a statement after the Thursday evening deadline to disperse, the University of Washington said the encampment violated university policies and that administration and police were figuring out how to address the situation.
At Emerson College in Boston, 108 people were arrested at a camp early Thursday. The video shows police first warning students in an alley to leave. Students linked arms to resist the officers, who moved forcefully through the crowd and threw some protesters to the ground.
“As the night went on, it got more tense. There were just more cops everywhere. It felt like we were slowly being pushed and crushed,” said Ocean Muir, a sophomore.
Muir said police lifted her by her arms and legs and took her away. Along with other students, Muir was charged Thursday with trespassing and disorderly conduct.
Boston police said four officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries during the confrontation.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began, the US Department of Education has launched civil rights investigations at dozens of universities and schools in response to complaints of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia. Among those investigated are many universities facing protests, such as Harvard and Columbia.
