The News
Police officers entered the University of California, Los Angeles, early Wednesday to quell clashes between pro-Palestinian protesters and those supporting Israel, hours after riot police cleared another campus protest at New York’s Columbia University.
UCLA declared the pro-Palestinan demonstrators’ encampment “unlawful,” the LA Times reported, and counter protesters tried to tear down barricades surrounding the site.
“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight and we immediately called law enforcement for mutual aid support. The fire department and medical personnel are on the scene. We are sickened by this senseless violence and it must end,” Mary Osako, UCLA’s vice chancellor for Strategic Communications, said.
Videos taken at the scene show fireworks being set off in the encampment.
In New York on Tuesday, dozens of New York Police Department officers entered Columbia University and attempted to clear a campus building that had been taken over by pro-Palestinian protesters. Columbia’s administration has requested that the NYPD remain on campus until May 17, after the university’s graduation events.
Social media and news footage showed officers in riot gear entering Hamilton House through a window. The Washington Post earlier reported that some officers had their guns drawn, but later issued a correction, saying the Post was unable to confirm that. Protesters had barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall — which they renamed Hind’s Hall after a slain Palestinian child in Gaza — since Monday night, prompting Columbia University to threaten them with expulsion.
Police arrested dozens of people from Columbia’s campus, zip tying their hands and loading them onto buses after issuing an order for protesters to disperse, CNN reported.
In a statement, Columbia said it decided to call the NYPD to ”restore safety and order,” adding the move was “in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing. The statement said that the group that breached Hamilton Hall appeared to be led by people who weren’t affiliated with the university.
The school had previously suspended students who refused to leave the days-long encampment. Earlier on Tuesday, the NYPD said they would not enter Columbia’s property without another request from the university.
The White House earlier denounced the students’ takeover of Hamilton Hall as “absolutely the wrong approach” that is “not an example of peaceful protest.”
More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested across US campuses in recent weeks, as demonstrations demanding universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel have intensified.
SIGNALS
Biden’s tougher stance on protests risks alienating younger voters
The White House issued what is being viewed as its strongest condemnation yet of the pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations. “President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful. Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful — it is wrong,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement Tuesday, adding that the president condemned “antisemitic smears.” While Biden’s shift to a more aggressive tone likely isn’t enough to appease pro-Israel Democrats who have called the president to take a stronger stance against the protests, it could also risk alienating younger voters, according to CNN, who already disapprove of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. “More and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party,” warned the College Democrats of America, a group that supports Biden’s reelection.
Republicans threaten to pull federal funds from universities
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has urged Columbia’s president to resign over what he says are failures to stop antisemitism on campus, said last week he would consider pulling federal funds from colleges with pro-Palestinian protests. “We’re looking at very seriously reducing or eliminating any federal funds at all to campuses who cannot maintain basic safety and security of Jewish students,” Johnson said. Yanking taxpayer money from colleges isn’t easy, however. It’s “a move so rife with potential unintended consequences and legal hurdles that the Trump administration never followed through on its own threats against school funding,” Politico reported.
Divestment is ‘practically impossible,’ some experts say
Some protesters’ calls for universities to divest from weapons manufacturers and companies that do business with Israel would be “practically impossible” to do, experts told The Washington Post, because of how the institutions’ endowments are invested. However, one endowment expert argued: “I think anything is possible in today’s financial services industry.” Regardless of the practicality, divestment from Israel wouldn’t do anything “financially meaningful,” The Wall Street Journal’s senior markets columnist wrote. The divestment campaign “can only succeed by isolating Israel culturally. It can’t work financially.”