Dozens arrested in California and Texas as campus administrators move to shut down protests – as it happened

Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor of New York, called Mike Johnson’s trip to Columbia University “divisive” and accused the House speaker of “politicizing the issue”.

According to the New York Post, Hochul said:

There’s a lot more responsibilities and crises to be dealt with in Washington. I’d encourage the speaker to go back and perhaps take up the migrant bill, the bill to deal with closing the border, so we can deal with a real crisis that New York has.

A crowd has gathered on the Low Steps of Columbia University, where the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, is expected to deliver remarks at a press conference after meeting with Jewish students today.

In a radio interview this morning, Johnson said he would call on the president of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, to resign after failing to crack down on the protests.

There is “significant activity” at the University of Southern California’s university park campus in Los Angeles, the school said in an update this afternoon.

As we reported earlier, videos posted to social media show students taking part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations being forcibly arrested by police.

As Columbia’s administration faces growing backlash following president Minouche Shafik’s decision last week to authorize police to dismantle Palestinian solidarity encampments and arrest students, a page on the university’s website has been garnering some attention online.

The page reflects on the 1968 protests that swept through Columbia as students demonstrated against the Vietnam war and the construction of a segregated gym in Morningside Park.

It says:

Columbia is a far different place today than it was in the spring of 1968 when protesters took over University buildings amid discontent about the Vietnam War, racism and the University’s proposed expansion into Morningside Park. After a weeklong standoff, New York City Police stormed the campus and arrested more than 700 people. The fallout dogged Columbia for years.

It took decades for the University to recover from those turbulent times. Columbia now has one of the most socio-economically diverse student bodies among its peer institutions.”

As students are arrested across the country over demonstrations and encampments held in solidarity with Palestine, New York University – which describes itself on its website as “a campus without walls” – has set up plywood walls.

The walls come after New York police arrested multiple protesters following demonstrations on Monday during which students and faculty called for the university to divest from Israel.

Here are some images surfacing online from NYU:

The Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has issued a statement about the crackdown on students at the University of Texas, Austin following their anti-war protests and calls for the university to “divest from death” in Israel.

In a statement on X, the ACLU chapter wrote:

“The freedom to protest is integral to our democracy.

UT Austin students have a First Amendment right to freely express their political opinions - without threats of arrest and violence.

If you or someone you know needs legal support, call the Austin Lawyers Guild: 512-817-4254.”

Here are more images and videos surfacing online from the University of Texas, Austin where state troopers have marched on to campus as anti-war students protest Israel’s war on Gaza:

Videos emerging online show students being forcibly arrested by police at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Campus officials have also dismantled Palestinian solidarity encampments set up earlier today by students who are demanding for USC to divest from Israel, along with a ceasefire in Gaza where Israeli forces have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.

Columbia University student protesters said the university has provided a “written commitment and concession not to call the NYPD or the National Guard” to break up the encampments.

A statement from Columbia students for justice in Palestine reads:

The university’s previous threats of an imminent sweep by the NYPD or the National Guard had severed negotiations. The administration’s threats backfired when student negotiators refused to stay at the table.

“Thousands of peaceful students flooded the lawns in support of their peers” in response to the failed negotiations, it said.

Student protestors on Columbia’s campus – the majority of whom are Palestinian, Black, brown, and Jewish students from marginalized backgrounds – stood by each other for hours last night, awaiting the outcome of Columbia’s disturbing threat of military or police violence.

Anti-war student protesters at France’s most prestigious politics school, Sciences Po, have begun pitching tents on the university’s campus.

Bilge Kotan, a student and journalist at Sciences Po, said about 70 people would camp at the university’s Saint-Thomas campus, demanding the institution cut ties with Israeli universities and stop “repression” of pro-Palestinian voices.

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