Conflict between university protesters and police spreads beyond Columbia
Student-led protests of the Israel-Gaza war continued to spread on Wednesday, breaking out at dozens of campuses across the country, from Ivy League institutions on the East Coast, to large public schools in the Midwest and South and at universities up and down California. The demonstrations come after months of unrest at American colleges but have reached a crescendo in recent days, as administrators have cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests and hundreds of students have been arrested. At the University of Texas in Austin on Wednesday, state troopers clad in riot gear took several protesters into custody, according to local reports, after hundreds of students walked out of class to demand the school divest from companies that do business with Israel. Ahead of the demonstration in Austin, administrators warned organizers to cancel the protest, saying that “refusal to comply may result in arrest.” Meanwhile, at the University of Southern California, officers struggled with protesters as they sought to break up an on-campus tent encampment. Videos posted to social media showed scenes of increasing tension as campus police pushed their way through a growing crowd. And at Columbia University, the campus that sparked the latest round of demonstrations, school officials on Wednesday extended by 48 hours a deadline for talks on dismantling pro-Palestinian protesters’ encampments on the campus grounds, after a midnight deadline issued the night before raised the prospect of further turmoil at the Ivy League institution. The university has been in talks with student organizers to clear an encampment on the West Lawn of Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus.
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