The deadline set by Columbia University for protesters to vacate campus is reversed

New York: As other US college campuses worked to stop occupations from taking root, Columbia University backed off late Thursday from an overnight deadline for pro-Palestinian demonstrators to vacate an encampment there.

Large-scale arrests have been made by police at American colleges, and they have sometimes used tasers and chemical irritants to break up rallies against Israel’s conflict with Hamas.

At 11:07 p.m. (0307 GMT Friday), the office of Columbia University president Minouche Shafik, who is headquartered in New York, released a statement waiving a midnight deadline for breaking up a sizable tent camp that houses around 200 students.

According to the statement, “the talks have shown progress and are continuing as planned.” “We have our demands; they have theirs.”

The claim that New York City police were invited to the school was refuted in the statement. It said, “This rumor is false.”

A youngster who went by Mimi told AFP that she had attended the program for seven days.

“They label us as aggressive and terrorists. However, when the students were seated in a circle, it was they who called the police, the speaker said.

“The police are the ones with guns; the police are the ones with tasers; we only have our voices.”

Student demonstrators claim to be showing support for Palestinians in Gaza, where the health ministry of the Hamas-run region reports that the dead toll has exceeded 34,305.

Around 2,000 people gathered again on Thursday after the arrest of over 200 anti-war protestors on Wednesday and early Thursday at campuses in Austin, Texas, Los Angeles, and Boston.

Tasers and chemical irritants were deployed by riot police in the southern state of Georgia to break up demonstrations at Atlanta’s Emory University.

Images circulated of police fighting demonstrators on well-mowed lawns while brandishing tassels.

According to the Atlanta Police Department, police used “chemical irritants” and “met with violence” in response to the school’s plea for assistance.

Columbia University, which has continued to be the focal point of the student protest movement, was the site of the first demonstrations.

Unrestricted speech?
University authorities are facing a difficult task in balancing the demonstrators’ demands for free speech on campus with criticism that the demonstrations have gone too far.

Concerned about student safety, pro-Israel advocates have cited anti-Semitic events and claimed that schools are inciting hate speech and intimidation.

“I’ve never felt more scared to be a Jew in America right now,” said George Washington University philosophy and political science student Skyler Sieradsky, 21.

“There are students and faculty standing by messages of hate and standing by messages that call for violence.”

A handful of Jewish students are among the demonstrators, who have denied anti-Semitism and blasted administrators for conflating it with hostility to Israel.

“People are here in support of Palestinian people from all different backgrounds… (compelled by) their general sense of justice,” AFP was informed by a 33-year-old PhD student at the University of Texas, Austin, who identified himself as Josh and claimed to be Jewish.

Israel, an ally of the United States, began its assault in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas onslaught, which claimed the lives of almost 1,170 Palestinians, according to an AFP count of Israeli government numbers.

Roughly 250 individuals were also taken prisoner by Hamas fighters. According to Israel, 129 people are still in Gaza, and 34 of them are thought to be dead.

From coast to shore
Authorities said that 93 individuals were taken into custody at the Southern California Institution in Los Angeles on Wednesday for trespassing. As a result, the institution canceled the festivities scheduled for the graduation ceremony on May 10.

This month, authorities canceled a top student’s scheduled speech at the ceremony, which typically draws 65,000 attendees, after receiving complaints from Jewish organizations that the student had ties to anti-Semitic organizations. She refuted the accusation.

Local media in Boston reported that classes at Emerson College were canceled on Thursday after police-protester clashes overnight that resulted in the destruction of a pro-Palestinian encampment and the arrest of 108 individuals.

Georgetown and George Washington University (GW) students in Washington set up a solidarity camping camp on the GW campus on Thursday.

Along with Yale and New York University, where several students were detained earlier this week, there have also been protests and encampments at Harvard, Brown, MIT, the University of Michigan, and other universities.

The campus of California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, may be closed into next week because demonstrators are seizing facilities, the university said.

US President Joe Biden condemned “blatant anti-Semitism” on Sunday, saying it had “no place on college campuses.”

However, the White House has also said that the president is in favor of free speech at American institutions.