6 months ago
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Image source, Getty Images
By Sam Cabral & Ana Faguy
BBC News, Washington
Dozens of college campuses across the US have been taken over by students protesting against the war in Gaza.
More than a thousand demonstrators have been arrested, including more than 100 on Tuesday night at Columbia University in New York City.
Many universities are struggling to deal with encampments on college grounds, just days before graduation ceremonies.
Why are students protesting over the war in Gaza?
Since the 7 October attack by Hamas and Israel's retaliatory assault, students have launched rallies, sit-ins, hunger strikes and, most recently, encampments against the war.
They are demanding that their schools, many with massive endowments, financially divest from Israel.
Divestment means to sell off stock in Israeli companies, or to otherwise drop financial ties.
Student activists say that companies doing business in Israel, or with Israeli organisations, are complicit in its ongoing war in Gaza - as are colleges investing in those companies.
University endowments fund everything from research labs to scholarship funds, mostly using returns from millions - and billions - of dollars in investments.
What happened at Columbia University?
During a police police raid on Tuesday night, officers cleared the encampment and removed protesters from an academic building they had taken over.
Officers in riot gear climbed ladders to enter the second storey of Hamilton Hall, before taking occupants away in police buses.
Some 119 people were arrested at Columbia Tuesday night, John Chell, chief of patrol for the NYPD, said Wednesday. Chell said it remains unclear how many of those individuals were students and how many were "outside agitators".
It began earlier this month. As Columbia president Minouche Shafik testified before Congress about antisemitism on campus, hundreds of students pitched tents on the Upper Manhattan campus.
Mass arrests the following day failed to prevent the protests from continuing and they sparked action at more colleges across the US. In-person classes at Columbia were cancelled.
Talks to resolve the dispute broke down and when the occupation spread to a university building, the police were called in again.
The university said the hall had been vandalised and blockaded and the police would remain until mid-May to prevent further encampments.
Watch: See how Gaza campus protests spread across the US
Where else are students protesting?
The escalating crisis at Columbia inspired similar protests and encampments across the country, including:
- Northeast region: George Washington; Brown; Yale; Harvard; Emerson; NYU; Georgetown; American; University of Maryland; Johns Hopkins; Tufts; Cornell; University of Pennsylvania; Princeton; Temple; Northeastern; MIT; The New School; University of Rochester; University of Pittsburgh
- West Coast: California State Polytechnic, Humboldt; University of Southern California; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Berkeley; University of Washington
- Midwest region: University of Wisconsin; Northwestern; Washington University in St Louis; Indiana University; University of Michigan; Ohio State; University of Minnesota; Miami University; University of Ohio; Columbia College Chicago; University of Chicago
- The South: Tulane; Emory; Vanderbilt; University of North Carolina, Charlotte; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Kennesaw State; Florida State; Virginia Tech; University of Georgia, Athens
- Southwest: University of Texas at Austin; Rice; Arizona State
Pro-Palestinian protesters have also gathered over the past week on university campuses in Australia, Canada, France, Italy and the UK.
How have universities handled the protests?
Some are negotiating with student activists while others are issuing ultimatums that have led to police being called in.
The latest round of arrests on Wednesday were made in Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where some 10 people were arrested and in New Orleans, Louisiana, where 14 people were arrested.
But an agreement was reached between Northwestern University and protesters which limits the size of the encampment.
National politicians have called on colleges to do more, highlighting reports of antisemitism at some of these protests.
Jewish students at several campuses have told the BBC about incidents that made them feel uncomfortable or fearful.
These ranged from chants and signs supporting Hamas, a proscribed terror group, to physical altercations and perceived threats.
Has protesting worked?
Pro-Palestinian campus groups have for years called on their institutions to support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, as a means of pushing back against Israel.
No US university has ever committed to the BDS framework, although some have cut specific financial ties in the past.
While divestment would have a negligible impact, if any, on the war in Gaza, protesters say it would shed light on those who profit from war and help build awareness of their issue.
Why are students recalling protests over Vietnam war?
Activists at Columbia and elsewhere have highlighted the protests at the end of the 1960s against US involvement in the Vietnam War.
Thousands were arrested and there were violent clashes with police.
Four students in Ohio were killed in 1970 when the National Guard opened fire.
Their deaths triggered a nationwide student strike and hundreds of universities closed.
