Police arrest NYU antiwar protesters; Calif. students form barricade
"Students protesting against the Israel-Gaza war continued to be met by police across the United States on Monday night, as a New York University encampment was cleared by the NYPD and students barricaded themselves inside a building at California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, following dozens of arrests at Yale University.
University campuses across the country have seen a surge in antiwar demonstrations in recent days, including students moving into tents in protest encampments. Some of these, including at Columbia University on Thursday and NYU on Monday night, were cleared by police called in at the request of the institutions.
At Columbia University, where the latest wave of campus unrest began, the university sent an email to staff and students on Monday requiring many classes at its Morningside main campus to be hybrid where possible for the rest of the semester. “Safety is our highest priority as we strive to support our students’ learning and all the required academic operations,” the university added in the email, seen by The Washington Post.
College leaders are facing intense scrutiny over whether they are doing enough to protect students, faculty and staff against alleged antisemitism and other bias since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack and subsequent conflict — even as they confront scathing criticism from those who say they are denying students’ right to speak out and censoring political protests.
On April 22, dozens were arrested at New York University and Yale as tensions flared again on campuses over the Israel-Gaza war. (Video: Julie Yoon/The Washington Post)
At Cal Poly Humboldt, the campus will be closed through Wednesday after student protesters barricaded themselves inside a building, Siemens Hall, the university said late Monday. It added that buildings are “locked down” and that “key cards will not work.”
The university urged people to stay away from the “dangerous and volatile situation” at the hall and said it was “deeply concerned about the safety of the protesters.” It urged them to “listen to directives from law enforcement … and to peacefully leave the building.”
A photo posted by National Students for Justice in Palestine showed the entry blocked with piled-up furniture.
Humboldt for Palestine, an activist group, posted on social media that students have “taken” the campus’s Siemens Hall, listing demands including that the university divest from any ties to Israel. It posted video of police appearing to push against the barricaded students and a statement that there had been arrests. When called late Monday, the University Police Department said it would answer questions “when the situation has de-escalated.”
In New York, police cleared a protest encampment centered at New York University’s Gould Plaza on Monday night at the request of the university, the New York Police Department and an NYU spokesperson said. Faculty members and students were arrested, according to NYU Faculty for Justice in Palestine.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said late Monday that the university had asked the police department to “clear Gould Plaza of individuals who were refusing to comply with repeated requests to disperse.” He said they were described as “interfering with the safety and security of our community.”
“There is a pattern of behavior occurring on campuses across our nation, in which individuals attempt to occupy a space in defiance of school policy,” he added.
Videos on social media showed dozens of officers in tense confrontations with protesters. Some officers tossed tents, and others grappled with demonstrators. Videos also showed police loading people, whose hands were zip-tied behind their backs, onto police buses.
NYU spokesman John Beckman said the university blocked access to the plaza where about 50 protesters were demonstrating “without authorization” Monday morning.
The barriers were breached early in the afternoon by additional protesters, “many of whom we believe were not affiliated with NYU,” he said. They exhibited “disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behavior” and refused to leave when told the protests would be disbanded, Beckman said. The university then requested assistance from the NYPD, he said, adding that “several antisemitic incidents” were reported.
More than 100 demonstrators were arrested at Columbia when the university called in the NYPD to clear a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on Thursday, sparking solidarity demonstrations on other campuses.
Yale said 47 students were arrested at Beinecke Plaza on Monday and will be referred for disciplinary action, potentially including suspension. The school said it made repeated efforts over the weekend to talk to protesters, offered them meetings with trustees and warned of arrests before the Monday morning action. Police released the detained protesters.
“I was deeply saddened that the call for civil discourse and peaceful protest I issued was not heeded,” Yale President Peter Salovey said in a message to the campus community. Salovey noted that members of the Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Arab, and Palestinian communities “reported that the campus environment had become increasingly difficult.”
Tacey Hutten, a student protester at Yale who was arrested Monday, said in an interview: “Not only are we not deterred, we may even be more engaged now. … We’re resolute. I’ve been involved in this struggle for a couple of months now and plan to be for the rest of my life.”
Other campuses also are contending with increasingly aggressive campus activism. A group of student protesters at Pomona College in California was arrested earlier this month after storming the president’s office. At the University of California at Berkeley in February, protesters broke windows and a door while disrupting a talk given by an Israeli lawyer."
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