Many Muslim students at Ohio State were unable to return home for Eid al-Fitr, so they celebrated together instead.

Mariam Abaza reports for campus paper The Lantern. (April 2024)

Protests are roiling college campuses nationwide as schools with graduation ceremonies next month face demands they cut financial ties to Israel because of the Israel-Hamas war.

Many campuses were largely quiet over the weekend but protesters on both sides of the issue shouted and shoved each other during dueling demonstrations Sunday at the University of California, Los Angeles.

About 275 people were arrested on Saturday at various campuses including Indiana University at Bloomington, Arizona State University and Washington University in St. Louis.

The number of arrests nationwide approached 900 since New York police removed a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia University and arrested more than 100 demonstrators on April 18.

Since then, students have dug in at dozens of pro-Palestinian encampments around the country, prompting a range of responses from administrators: arrests and criminal charges, student suspensions or simply continued pleas to leave.

The plight of students has become a central part of protests, with both the students and a growing number of faculty demanding amnesty for protesters. At issue is whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students through their adult lives.

Faculty members at universities in California, Georgia and Texas have initiated or passed largely symbolic votes of no confidence in their leadership.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Biden "knows that there are very strong feelings" but would leave managing the protests to local authorities.

"People should have the ability to air their views and to share their perspectives publicly but it has to be peaceful," Kirby said on ABC's "This Week."

In an interview that aired Sunday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called it "a dangerous situation" and placed the responsibility with college administrators.

"There's also antisemitism, which is completely unacceptable. I've been shocked to see that in this country," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

How it started

Early protests at Columbia University in New York City sparked pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country and students and administrators there have engaged in negotiations, the university said in a statement Saturday night.

Columbia has set a series of deadlines for protesters to leave the encampment — which they have missed — but bringing back police "at this time" would be counterproductive, the school wrote in an email to students.

On Sunday, students walked among dozens of colorful tents that continue to stand.

California

At the University of California, Los Angeles, police set up barricades before hundreds of demonstrators on both sides joined a growing crowd Sunday near where pro-Palestinian students have been staying around-the-clock in tents. Counter-protesters who organized a "Stand in Support of Jewish Students" rally said their goal was to "stand up against hatred and antisemitism."

Across town, the University of Southern California said it was open Sunday after being shut down a day earlier because of what the university called vandalism and disruptions.

USC drew criticism after refusing to allow the valedictorian, who has publicly supported the Palestinian cause, to make a commencement speech. Administrators then scrapped the keynote speech by filmmaker Jon M. Chu. Last week the school announced the cancelation of its main graduation event, a day after more than 90 protesters were arrested by police in riot gear.

In the northern part of the state, officials on Saturday ordered an "enforced hard closure" of California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. Two halls remained occupied by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The school said Sunday that the cost of the occupation — including damage done by "theft, vandalism and graffiti" — was estimated to be in the millions.

Missouri

Washington University in St. Louis locked some campus buildings and arrested protesters Saturday. Photos showed uniformed police attempting to remove masked protesters as others, also wearing masks, linked arms to thwart the efforts.

In a statement, the university said more than 100 people — including 23 students and four university employees — were arrested on suspicion of trespassing. Megan Green, president of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, said in a social media post that she was present and the protest remained calm "until the police came in like an ambush."

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said in a social media post that she and two of her campaign managers were among those arrested.

The university's statement defended the action and said protesters "did not have good intentions on our campus and that this demonstration had the potential to get out of control and become dangerous."

Some arrested also face charges of resisting arrest and assault, including for injuries to three police officers, the statement said. Those injuries include a severe concussion, a broken finger and a groin injury.

The Missouri chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the arrests as "heavy-handed."

Massachusetts

In Boston, police in riot gear cleared an encampment on the campus of Northeastern University on Saturday.

Massachusetts State Police said about 102 protesters were arrested and will be charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Northeastern said in a statement that the demonstration, which began two days ago, had become "infiltrated by professional organizers" with no affiliation to the university and antisemitic slurs, including "kill the Jews," had been used.

The Huskies for a Free Palestine student group disputed the university's account, saying in a statement that counterprotesters were to blame for the slurs and no student protesters "repeated the disgusting hate speech."

Students at the Boston protest said a counterprotester attempted to instigate hate speech but insisted their event was peaceful.

U.S. campuses and the Israel-Hamas war

The nationwide campus protests began in response to Israel's offensive in Gaza. Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza. In the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.

halifax, canada — 

A tightening job market in Canada, fueled by a surge of immigration that produced the fastest population growth in 67 years, is hitting the country's large cohort of international students particularly hard.

With more than 1 million foreign students in the country who are largely restricted to low-wage, part-time jobs, photos are being shared on social media of long lines forming outside businesses with even a single job opening for a position such as cashier.

"The present affordability crisis in Vancouver, along with the declining job opportunities, is becoming very stressful," said Dhvani Malik, a fourth-year international relations student at the University of British Columbia.

"International students already pay so much in fees, and the increasing rent and living costs have only added to the financial pressure," Malik told VOA. "In my circle, students are taking multiple part-time jobs to address this burden. … Students have to make the bargain of getting certain groceries at some point and then leaving the rest for when they can afford it."

Youth unemployment hovers near 12%

Unemployment in Canada has been inching up in recent months, hitting 6.1% in March and roughly twice that for young people, according to the federal government's statistical agency. The trend is attributed in part to rapid population growth, fueled almost entirely by immigration and the arrival of temporary residents such as seasonal workers and foreign students.

In public remarks this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau effectively acknowledged that his government's strategy of addressing a severe labor shortage by opening the door to record numbers of immigrants and temporary residents has overshot the mark.

"To give an example, in 2017, 2% of Canada's population was made up of temporary immigrants," Trudeau was quoted by Global News as saying during a housing announcement in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. "Now we're at 7.5% of our population comprised of temporary immigrants. That's something we need to get back under control."

Statistics Canada reported that the country's population of about 39 million grew last year at its fastest rate since 1957, with immigration accounting for almost all the growth. But while helping address a post-pandemic labor shortage, the rapid increase has placed pressure on housing costs and government-financed health care.

"We want to get those numbers down," Trudeau was quoted as saying in Nova Scotia. "It's a responsible approach to immigration that continues on our permanent residents, as we have, but also hold the line a little more on the temporary immigration that has caused so much pressure in our communities."

International students, who are offered pathways to employment in Canada and eventual citizenship after graduation, have been an important part of the rapid growth. Canada has roughly the same number of foreign students as the United States with eight times the population, The Washington Post reported this week.

Regulations restrict work hours

Because the foreign students pay much higher fees than Canadian citizens, they are also an important source of revenue for the nation's universities. However, facing mounting political pressure, the government in January announced new caps on the number of foreign students that would be admitted, and last month announced a plan to scale back the total number of temporary residents.

For foreign students seeking to support themselves in Canada while pursuing their degrees, the problem is exacerbated by regulations that restrict the kinds of jobs they can accept and the number of hours they can work.

"The main issue is that they cannot work full time," said Al Parsai, an immigration expert based in Toronto. "They also do not have a Canadian degree or Canadian work experience, yet. Consequently, they end up looking for hourly minimum wage jobs."

Malik, the UBC student, said she finds herself shut out of many job opportunities because she cannot provide a referral from a prior employer or relative in Canada.

"My field has several job opportunities in the nonprofit sector and the government, but those jobs are reserved for domestic students and refugees," she said.

"I have celiac disease, and the groceries are already so expensive that with the current crisis, it is becoming unaffordable to get through my grocery list," she said. "In a nutshell, the current crisis is making it difficult to stay in Canada."

The decision to cut back student visas, meanwhile, is expected to create financial headaches for universities such as UBC, one of the most prestigious in Canada, where tuition-paying international students accounted for 27% of the school's enrollment in 2022.

The harshest province to crack down on international students has so far been Ontario, which has aimed to give 96% of its foreign study permits only to public universities and colleges, shutting out private colleges that have been criticized as "diploma mills."

Quebec might go even further, as the Parti Quebecois has asked the provincial government to freeze all temporary immigration to Canada.

Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.

But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the " Gaza Solidarity Encampment," a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.

The students' plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.

Terms of the suspensions vary from campus to campus. At Columbia and its affiliated Barnard College for women, Alwan and dozens more were arrested April 18 and promptly barred from campus and classes, unable to attend in-person or virtually, and banned from dining halls.

Questions about their academic futures remain. Will they be allowed to take final exams? What about financial aid? Graduation? Columbia says outcomes will be decided at disciplinary hearings, but Alwan says she has not been given a date.

"This feels very dystopian," said Alwan, a comparative literature and society major.

What started at Columbia has turned into a nationwide showdown between students and administrators over anti-war protests and the limits of free speech. In the past 10 days, hundreds of students have been arrested, suspended, put on probation and, in rare cases, expelled from colleges including Yale University, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota.

Barnard, a women's liberal arts college at Columbia, suspended more than 50 students who were arrested April 18 and evicted them from campus housing, according to interviews with students and reporting from the Columbia Daily Spectator campus newspaper, which obtained internal campus documents.

On Friday, Barnard announced it had reached agreements restoring campus access to "nearly all" of them. A statement from the college did not specify the number but said all students who had their suspensions lifted have agreed to follow college rules and, in some cases, were put on probation.

On the night of the arrests, however, Barnard student Maryam Iqbal posted a screenshot on the social media platform X of a dean's email telling her she could briefly return to her room with campus security before getting kicked out.

"You will have 15 minutes to gather what you might need," the email read.

More than 100 Barnard and Columbia faculty staged a "Rally to Support Our Students" last week condemning the student arrests and demanding suspensions be lifted.

Columbia is still pushing to remove the tent encampment on the campus main lawn where graduation is set to be hosted May 15. The students have demanded the school cuts ties with Israel-linked companies and ensure amnesty for students and faculty arrested or disciplined in connection with the protests.

Talks with the student protesters are continuing, said Ben Chang, a Columbia spokesperson. "We have our demands; they have theirs," he said.

For international students facing suspension, there is the added fear of losing their visas, said Radhika Sainath, an attorney with Palestine Legal, which helped a group of Columbia students file a federal civil rights complaint against the school Thursday. It accuses Columbia of not doing enough to address discrimination against Palestinian students.

"The level of punishment is not even just draconian, it feels like over-the-top callousness," Sainath said.

More than 40 students were arrested at a Yale demonstration last week, including senior Craig Birckhead-Morton. He is due to graduate May 20 but says the university has not yet told him if his case will be submitted to a disciplinary panel. He worries about whether he will receive a diploma and if his acceptance to Columbia graduate school could be at risk.

"The school has done its best to ignore us and not tell us what happens next," said Birckhead-Morton, a history major.

Across the country, college administrators have struggled to balance free speech and inclusivity. Some demonstrations have included hate speech, antisemitic threats or support for Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on October. 7, sparking a war in Gaza that the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry says has left more than 34,000 dead.

May commencement ceremonies add pressure to clear demonstrations. University officials say arrests and suspensions are a last resort, and that they give ample warnings beforehand to clear protest areas.

Vanderbilt University in Tennessee has issued what are believed to be the only student expulsions related to protesting the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding. More than two dozen students occupied the university chancellor's office for several hours on March 26, prompting the university to summon police and arrest several protesters. Vanderbilt then issued three expulsions, one suspension and put 22 protesters on probation.

In an open letter to Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, more than 150 Vanderbilt professors criticized the university's crackdown as "excessive and punitive."

Freshman Jack Petocz, 19, one of those expelled, is being allowed to attend classes while he appeals. He has been evicted from his dorm and is living off campus.

Petocz said protesting in high school was what helped get him into Vanderbilt and secure a merit scholarship for activists and organizers. His college essay was about organizing walkouts in rural Florida to oppose Gov. Ron DeSantis' anti-LGBTQ policies.

"Vanderbilt seemed to love that," Petocz said. "Unfortunately, the buck stops when you start advocating for Palestinian liberation."

NEW YORK — 

From New York to California, students protesting the Israel-Hamas war slept in tents at college campuses, as some universities moved to shut down encampments and arrested dozens of demonstrators after reports of antisemitic activity.

With the death toll mounting in the war in Gaza, protesters nationwide are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say enable the conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus.

At Columbia University in New York City, where early protests sparked pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country, students and administrators have engaged in negotiations, the university said in a statement Saturday night.

"Dialogue between university officials and student organizers is ongoing. We want to be clear: There is no truth to claims of an impending lockdown or evictions on campus," the Columbia administration's statement said.

Though the university repeatedly set and then pushed back deadlines for the removal of the encampment, the school sent an email to students saying that bringing back police "at this time" would be counterproductive.

Decisions to call in law enforcement, leading to hundreds of arrests nationwide, have prompted school faculty members at universities in California, Georgia and Texas to initiate or pass votes of no confidence in their leadership. They are largely symbolic rebukes, without the power to remove their presidents.

Washington University in St. Louis locked some campus buildings and arrested protesters Saturday. The St. Louis Police Department said in a social media post that it assisted campus police, although city officers did not make any arrests.

The Riverfront Times, a St. Louis weekly newspaper, reported more than 80 people were arrested during the protest that began in public areas before moving to the campus in the afternoon. Megan Green, president of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, said in a social media post that she was present and the protest remained calm "until the police came in like an ambush."

Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein said in a social media post that she and two of her campaign managers were among those arrested on the Washington University campus.

The University of Southern California said on Saturday it had temporarily closed its University Park Campus to nonresidents, without providing details of the closure or possible enforcement measures.

Joel Curran, senior vice president of communications, said in a statement that USC property was vandalized by members of a group "that has continued to illegally camp on our campus," as well as disrupting operations and harassing students and others.

Students declined numerous attempts by university President Carol Folt to meet, and the administration hopes for "a more reasonable response Sunday before we are forced to take further action," Curran said.

"While the university fully supports freedom of expression, these acts of vandalism and harassment are absolutely unacceptable and will not be tolerated," Curran said.

In Boston, police in riot gear cleared an encampment on the campus of Northeastern University on Saturday. Massachusetts State Police said about 102 protesters were arrested and will be charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. Protesters said they were given about 15 minutes to disperse before being arrested.

As workers pulled down tents and bagged up the debris from the encampment, several dozen people across from the encampment chanted, "Let the kids go," and slogans against the war in Gaza. They also booed as police cars passed and taunted the officers who stood guard.

Northeastern said in a statement that the demonstration, which began two days ago, had become "infiltrated by professional organizers" with no affiliation to the university and antisemitic slurs, including "kill the Jews," had been used.

"We cannot tolerate this kind of hate on our campus," the statement posted on social media said.

The Huskies for a Free Palestine student group disputed the university's account, saying in a statement that counterprotesters were to blame for the slurs and no student protesters "repeated the disgusting hate speech."

Students at the Boston protest said a counterprotester attempted to instigate hate speech but insisted their event was peaceful and, like many across the country, was aimed at drawing attention to what they described as the "genocide" in Gaza and their university's complicity in the war.

The president of nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a statement Saturday that an encampment there had become a "potential magnet for disruptive outside protesters" and was taking hundreds of staff hours to keep safe.

"We have a responsibility to the entire MIT community — and it is not possible to safely sustain this level of effort," MIT President Sally Kornbluth said. "We are open to further discussion about the means of ending the encampment. But this particular form of expression needs to end soon."

Indiana University campus officers and state police arrested 23 people Saturday at an encampment on the school's Bloomington campus. Tents and canopies were erected Friday at Dunn Meadow in violation of school policy, university police said in a release. Group members were detained after refusing to remove the structures with charges ranging from criminal trespass to resisting law enforcement, police said.

Arizona State University said 69 people were arrested early Saturday on suspicion of criminal trespassing for setting up an unauthorized encampment on a lawn on its Tempe campus. The protesters were given chances to leave and those who refused were arrested.

"While the university will continue to be an environment that embraces freedom of speech, ASU's first priority is to create a safe and secure environment that supports teaching and learning," the university said in a statement.

The tensions have piled pressure on school officials, who are scrambling to resolve the protests as May graduation ceremonies near.

USC drew criticism after refusing to allow the valedictorian, who has publicly supported Palestinians, to make a commencement speech. Administrators then scrapped the keynote speech by filmmaker Jon M. Chu. The school on Thursday announced the cancellation of its main graduation event, a day after more than 90 protesters were arrested by police in riot gear.

Folt, the university president, made her first public statement late Friday, addressing the controversies as "incredibly difficult for all of us."

"No one wants to have people arrested on their campus. Ever. But, when long-standing safety policies are flagrantly violated, buildings vandalized, Department of Public Safety directives repeatedly ignored, threatening language shouted, people assaulted, and access to critical academic buildings blocked, we must act immediately to protect our community," Folt said.

The nationwide campus protests began in response to Israel's offensive in Gaza. Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza. In the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.