More than 2,000 activists have been arrested on college campuses across the United States, according to a report, in the weeks since the New York Police Department first forcefully cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University on April 18.
The Los Angeles Police Department raided the Palestine Solidarity Encampment at the University of California Los Angeles, in the early hours of Thursday morning, arresting at least 200 students and faculty members in the process.
Similar clashes between law enforcement and activists have unfolded across the nation - from private liberal arts colleges to massive state universities - prompting criticism from First Amendment advocates and pro-Palestinian activists.
According to a tally done by the Associated Press, over 2,000 people have been arrested across the country in connection to campus protests and encampments.
"Mass arresting protestors - many of whom are themselves Jewish - does nothing to quell the very real threat of antisemitism. Officials must not conflate support for Palestinian lives and criticism of Israel with antisemitism," the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote, on April 23, in response to the NYPD initial Columbia arrests.
"NYU, Columbia, and all schools have a responsibility to keep students protected from violence and discrimination - as well as from censorship. Calling the NYPD on their own students and squashing their nonviolent advocacy does nothing to keep students safer."
There have been confirmed arrests at more than 40 colleges and universities, according to a New York Times analysis. Columbia, UCLA, the University of Texas Austin, the City College of New York and Emerson College all saw more than 100 individuals detained at pro-Palestine events.
"[The police] kept being like, 'this is your last chance. If you are here you will be arrested.' But they didn't start saying things like that until after they had already started grabbing and dragging people out," an Emerson student told WBZ-TV.
"It was not so much a last chance of not being arrested more so, a last chance of not being brutalized. There were people getting thrown down to the ground, arms put behind their back [and] dragged away."
The union that represents academic workers in the University of California system threatened to strike on Wednesday, partially in response to the administration's decision to involve the LAPD in student protests.
"Management has employed police violence or allowed violence to be used against students, faculty and academic workers exercising their right to free speech, the executive board of UAW 4811 wrote, in an email obtained by HNGN. "The use and sanction of violent force to curtail peaceful protest is an attack on free speech and the right to demand change, and the university must sit down with students, unions and campus organizations to negotiate, rather than escalate."
President Joe Biden addressed the campus upheaval, on Thursday, during an impromptu speech at the White House.
"We've often faced moments like this because we are a big, diverse, free-thinking and freedom-loving nation," the president said. "In moments like this, there are always those who rush in to score political points. But this isn't a moment for politics. It's a moment for clarity."
"So, let me be clear. Violent protest is not protected, peaceful protest is."
