120 antiwar protesters arrested at NYU; California students form barricade

MANHATTAN, N.Y. – Arrests continued Tuesday at colleges across the country after students refused to end their protests against the Israel-Gaza war, part of a surge of demonstrations and encampments that have exacerbated already tense emotions on campuses.

At the University of Minnesota, police moved in during early-morning hours at the request of the institution, arrested nine people and cleared tents in a grassy expanse in front of the main library. That followed the arrest of 120 protesters at New York University on Monday night, according to the New York Police Department.

The developments at those two schools mirrored scenes at Columbia University on Thursday and Yale University on Monday. On the West Coast, California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt went into a lockdown after student protesters barricaded themselves inside a building.

At Columbia, where the latest wave of campus unrest began, the university sent an email to staff and students 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 in Israel and the subsequent conflict that has decimated Gaza – even as they confront scathing criticism from those who say they are denying students’ right to speak out and censoring political protests.

On the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, students began setting up bright green and orange tents in a central space in front of the Walter Library about 4 a.m. Tuesday. Police arrived about two hours later and warned protesters that they were violating university and state trespassing laws and could be subject to arrest, a university spokesman detailed in a statement. Some students opted to disperse, and those who didn’t were arrested, the statement said.

Senior Merlin Van Alstine, an organizer with her campus’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, said protesters were inspired by what had happened at Yale, NYU and Columbia. They felt emboldened and ready to escalate their own demands – first issued in March following a campus referendum – that the university divest from Israel, cut all ties with Israeli universities, end study-abroad programs in Israel and stop permitting weapons companies on campus to recruit engineering students.

“We decided to set up our own encampments because the university is not listening to its students’ demands,” said Van Alstine, 21.

Students were in place at their hastily erected encampment – complete with Palestinian flags and banners vowing “Solidarity with Palestine” – before police showed up, Van Alstine said. Law enforcement issued a dispersal warning to the roughly 30 students, she said, giving them a half-hour to leave.

Some departed, Van Alstine said, but nine students stayed put, sitting on the ground, linking arms and chanting “Free Palestine!” and “Long live Gaza!”

Police drove those arrested to the Hennepin County jail, and each faces charges of trespassing, she said. Bail was set for most of the students at $70 – which other students paid – but one person had bail totaling $300 “for some reason,” she said.

By late morning, police and facilities personnel had dismantled and cleared the students’ camp in front of the Walter Library – known as “the Mall” and a central campus hangout. Another rally, to protest the arrests, was planned by UMN Divest for Tuesday afternoon.

In New York, police cleared the protest encampment centered at NYU’s Gould Plaza on Monday night at the request of the university, according to the NYPD and an NYU spokesperson. Faculty members and students were arrested, NYU Faculty for Justice in Palestine announced. The department told the Post it did not know how many of those arrested were students or faculty.

Police Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry told Fox 5 New York that about 10 to 15 faculty members had “their hands tied together in a chain” and that they were “most aggressive” toward police officers. “They would not move, they would not let go,” he said, adding that staff were “physical” toward police.

Daughtry said that police were asked to come in by school leadership, who requested assistance, and that protesters were asked to leave the area before officers took action.

Tarik Sheppard, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of public information, told Fox that officials were using lessons learned from Columbia to tackle the situation at NYU and to help form a plan to keep Gould Plaza clear of protesters. Footage aired Tuesday on Fox showed a panel being set up to block off the plaza.

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 that 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. The university then requested assistance from the NYPD, Beckman said, adding that “several antisemitic incidents” were reported.

The Cal Poly Humboldt campus will be closed through Wednesday, with buildings “locked down” and classes held remotely, the university said late Monday.

Student protesters had barricaded themselves inside Siemens Hall, and the administration urged people to stay away from the “dangerous and volatile situation” there and said it was “deeply concerned about the safety of the protesters.” It urged the students 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 had “taken” the building, listing demands that included university divestment 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 deescalated.”

At Columbia, where more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested, university spokesman Ben Chang said Tuesday afternoon that the student encampment was continuing to grow and that officials were worried about campus safety because of “concerns from Jewish students” as well as “the presence of non-affiliates.” He also noted acts of vandalism and reports of harassment and discrimination since the demonstrations began.

Chang declined to reveal how many student suspensions the university has undertaken and referred questions about arrests and investigations to police. He noted that Columbia officials met with student protesters until 2 a.m. Tuesday.

“We have our demands, they have theirs,” Chang said. “We are working hard to resolve the situation.”

Yale said the 47 students arrested at Beinecke Plaza 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 over the Israel-Gaza war. A group of student protesters at Pomona College in California were 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.