April 26, 2024 - Protests at Columbia and other schools escalate

Our live coverage of the protests has moved here.

“Outside agitators” at Columbia are “trying to hijack a peaceful protest,” New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said Friday night.

The commissioner added the NYPD has seen the same groups of “professional protestors” demonstrating nightly “at various demonstrations regardless of the message.”

Daughtry reiterated the NYPD is ready to intervene and address issues on Columbia’s campus as soon as the university’s president gives them the go-ahead.

Pro-Palestinian protests continued at major US universities through Friday evening decrying Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

Throughout the week, several schools called police on protesters, leading to the arrests of hundreds across the country. Protesters have demanded schools divest campus funds from entities connected to Israel.

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Hamas’ deadly October 7 attack on Israel killed about 1,200 people.

College administrators are facing increasing pressure from lawmakers to rein in protests. At Columbia - the epicenter of the demonstrations - the school’s senate passed a resolution late Friday to investigate the university leadership’s handling of the protests. 

Here are the latest developments:

Arizona State University: Police at Arizona State University arrested three people Friday on suspicion of trespassing “in connection with setting up an unauthorized encampment,” a university spokesperson said.

Barnard College: The school said it reached resolutions with “nearly all students who were previously placed on interim suspension” for participating in the protest encampment on Columbia’s campus.

Columbia University: The university banned a student spokesperson for the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition who said in January “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” He subsequently apologized.

Denver campuses: At a joint campus for the University of Colorado Denver, Community College of Denver and Metropolitan State University of Denver, around 40 of the approximately 100 people who set up a pro-Palestinian encampment were arrested Friday, the campus said in a statement.

Emory University: Faculty gathered on campus to express concerns about the violent arrests that took place on campus on Thursday, with tenured professors calling for the university’s president, Gregory Fenves, to step down over the decision to call in state and local police to clear out the protesters. 

George Washington University: The university said Friday that any student who remains in University Yard may be placed on temporary suspension and administratively barred from campus.

Ohio State University: A total of 36 demonstrators were arrested Thursday night after refusing dispersal orders, according to a preliminary report from the university.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: More than 75 students gathered Friday to set up an encampment at the school, demanding the university divest from corporations that invest in Israel and its military operations.

University of Southern California: School president Carol L. Folt said in a statement the campus has become unsafe and the university will launch an inquiry and take action to protect all USC students, faculty and staff.

University of Texas at Austin: The school has placed the Palestine Solidarity Committee on “interim suspension.” The group organized Wednesday’s event, where over 50 arrests ensued.

Virginia Tech: School officials on Friday issued a statement about an encampment on campus, saying they told protesters the event does not comply with university policy.

Yale University: One letter from the Faculty for Justice in Palestine organization criticized student arrests this week and said faculty are prepared to stage walkouts and boycott Yale’s graduation ceremonies. Another letter denounced Yale’s administration for failing “in your responsibility to protect the Jewish students, staff and faculty at Yale.” 

Pro-Palestinian protestors set up about 30 tents for a "sit-in" protest of the war in Gaza at Auraria campus in Denver, Colorado on Friday, April 26.

Around 40 of the approximately 100 people who set up a pro-Palestinian encampment at the Auraria Campus in Denver were arrested Friday, the campus said in a statement. 

The campus is home to the University of Colorado Denver, Community College of Denver as well as the Metropolitan State University of Denver. The arrests were made by Auraria Higher Education Center Police and the Denver Police Department.

Campus and education department officials directed students to dismantle and leave the encampment, and after “protestors did not comply after numerous written and verbal requests, law enforcement stepped in at approximately 12:30 p.m. on Friday to remove the encampments,” the campus statement continued.

Barnard College said it reached resolutions with “nearly all students who were previously placed on interim suspension” for participating in the protest encampment on Columbia’s campus.

The college “immediately restored full access for these students to residence halls, dining facilities, classrooms, and other parts of campus,” according to a statement from the school released Friday.

At least 55 Barnard students were placed on interim suspension for participating in Columbia’s protest encampment, according to a statement from Barnard’s Student Government Association. 

Barnard College declined to comment on the number of students suspended.

Columbia University’s senate voted in favor of a resolution to create a task force to investigate the university leadership’s handling of Pro-Palestinian protests on campus, according to documents obtained by CNN.

The resolution passed Friday alleges, among other things, that the administration jeopardized academic freedom, breached privacy and due process of students and faculty members and violated shared governance principles by calling for police intervention on campus, according to documents on the meeting. 

After the investigation, the task force will present its findings and recommendations to the university’s senate to determine further actions and take the necessary steps to address the alleged misconduct of the administration, according to the documents. 

Some context: The decision comes after the school and university president Minouche Shafik faced criticism from students, faculty and left-leaning lawmakers after Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to shut down student protests on campus, which have urged school leaders to cut off economic and academic ties to Israel. At the same time, students, religious groups and right-leaning lawmakers have said the administration has failed to stop antisemitism inside Columbia’s campus and at protests outside its gates, CNN previously reported.

Columbia’s senate represents people on campus, including faculty, researchers, students, administration and more, according to the school’s website. The body has the authority to make policies on a variety of issues that affect the school.

Police at Arizona State University arrested three people Friday “for trespassing in connection with setting up an unauthorized encampment, in violation of university policy,” a university spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.

Encampments, unless they are part of an approved event, are prohibited by the university, the spokesperson said in an earlier statement.

The University of Southern California needed to “act immediately to protect our community” when it came to protests on campus this week, school president Carol L. Folt said in a statement.

The university has “long-standing protocols that allow for peaceful protesting” and has been working with the school community to ensure they are followed during the school year, Folt said.

“The current pressures and polarization have taken a toll in ways that break my heart,” she said. “I know Trojans will do what they have always done: share points of view, listen, search for common ground – and find ways to support each other.”

She encouraged anyone in the campus community experiencing harassment or bullying to report it to the school, saying it would launch an inquiry and take action to protect students, faculty and staff “no matter their views.”

Demonstration leader Khymani James address the media outside a tent camp on the campus of Columbia University in New York on Wednesday, April 24.

Columbia University has banned one of the students leading the university’s pro-Palestinian protests, a university spokesperson told CNN on Friday.  

Khymani James, a student spokesperson for Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, acknowledged in a post on X that he said, “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” saying it was from an Instagram Live video taken in January.

“I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize,” James wrote.

The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to leaders at public and private universities Thursday, urging them to make space for student speech and protest.

The organization noted five “basic guardrails” to ensure free speech and academic freedom on campus. But some of that guidance also highlight the challenge for college administrators. The second guardrail reads:

The letter also points to previous legal cases and historic moments where law enforcement used “inappropriate and excessive force in responding to protests.” And it warned protesters that “violence is never an acceptable protest tactic.”

Human Rights Watch statement: The advocacy group also mentioned the rights of protesters in a letter published Friday by the group’s UN Director Louis Charbonneau.

“As protests spread to campuses across the country, university administrations should be careful not to mislabel criticism of Israeli government policies or advocacy for Palestinian rights as inherently antisemitic or to misuse university authority to quash peaceful protest. Instead, universities should safeguard people’s rights to assembly and free expression,” Charbonneau wrote.

Columbia University officials from the Office of Public Affairs plan to hold a press briefing with reporters on the “ongoing campus situation,” according to a notice sent out Friday afternoon.

The university did not provide any further details on who will be addressing reporters. In recent days, Columbia administrators have been engaging in negotiations with students partaking in the pro-Palestinian encampments on campus. 

CNN will be covering the briefing. For updates following along here.

Emory University faculty gathered on campus to express concerns about the violent arrests that took place on campus Thursday, with tenured professors calling for the university’s president, Gregory Fenves, to step down over the decision to call in state and local police to clear out the protesters.

Around 200 members were present in person for the emergency meeting of the school’s College of Arts and Sciences faculty leaders, and another 200 attended on Zoom. The attendees overwhelmingly passed a motion that would call for a no-confidence vote for Fenves, urging him to step down.

Philosophy Professor Dilek Huseyinzadegan spoke to the crowd and said that a police officer pointed a “machine gun” at her head and she was threatened with arrest while she was trying to listen to a student give out the phone number to call her mother. 

Huseyinzadegan added that she “does not feel safe enough to return to campus for the rest of the year,” and may not return at all.

Noelle McAfee, the university's Philosophy Department Chair, speaks with CNN on Thursday, April 25.

Noelle McAfee, the university’s Philosophy Department Chair, also spoke at the event and received a nearly minute-long ovation. McAfee was among those detained during Thursday’s protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. She was not charged and was released on the scene with a citation, she said.

McAfee told CNN she was at the scene to act as an unofficial observer of law enforcement officers when she was detained. 

The motion will be sent to the entire Emory College of Arts and Sciences faculty next week, and they will all be able to vote electronically.

This post has been updated with additional information about the meeting.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators face off with Texas Department of Public Safety officers at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday, April 24.

The University of Texas at Austin has placed the Palestine Solidarity Committee on “interim suspension,” citing the “alleged violation of institutional rules,” according to Brian Davis, a spokesman for the university. 

The group, which organized Wednesday’s event that was met with a large police presence, posted a statement on Instagram Friday, calling the suspension “an attack on free speech to distract from and enable israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people!”

CNN is seeking clarity on what the interim suspension entails for the group. The PSC was planning to hold a vigil this coming Monday, but it’s unclear if that will continue. CNN has reached out to members of the group about the suspension. 

The university has stood by its decision to bring in law enforcement to prohibit the rally from moving forward on Wednesday, resulting in over 50 arrests and multiple clashes between police and students. The Office of the Dean of Students had also issued a letter to the PSC on Tuesday, warning that the event was not approved and the group would face disciplinary action, including suspension, if it proceeded. 

While the group used terminology like “occupy the lawn” in its promotional posts for Wednesday’s event, PSC members have told CNN they never intended to set up encampments on the lawn or stay overnight, and they had a schedule for the event that included study breaks and teach-ins. 

On Thursday, the university’s president, Jay Hartzell, released a statement saying the school tried to stop the event because “we had credible indications that the event’s organizers, whether national or local, were trying to follow the pattern we see elsewhere, using the apparatus of free speech and expression to severely disrupt a campus for a long period.”

Hartzell also noted that 26 of the 55 arrests were individuals with no affiliation to the university. 

Hartzell said the university has seen 13 pro-Palestinian events take place in recent months without incident, including another one that took place Thursday afternoon on campus.  

Two open letters are circulating among Yale faculty reacting to the university administration’s pro-Palestinian protests this week, according to the school’s student-run newspaper. The story was first reported by The Yale Daily News.

One from the Faculty for Justice in Palestine organization criticized student arrests this week and said that faculty are prepared to stage walkouts and boycott Yale’s graduation ceremonies “if the administration continues to meet students’ demands for disclosure and divestment with silence and punishment.”

The other letter denounced Yale’s administration for failing “in your responsibility to protect the Jewish students, staff and faculty at Yale.” The letter cites alleged examples of protesters intimidating and harassing Jewish students.

The two letters’ differing messages underscore the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the protests roiling college campuses across the US, not only for the students but also for academics and other staff.

Virginia Tech officials on Friday issued a statement about an encampment on campus, saying they told protesters the event does not comply with university policy.

The statement continued, “The safety and welfare of all members of the Virginia Tech community is the university’s primary responsibility while we remain unequivocally committed to upholding freedom of speech and academic freedom. This is expressed and upheld through our Principles of Community.”

Bipartisan legislation announced on Friday by New York lawmakers would empower the US Department of Education to appoint a third-party antisemitism monitor at colleges and universities that receive federal funding.

The bill, College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability (COLUMBIA) Act, is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.

If passed and signed into law, colleges chosen would pay for the monitorship and could lose federal funds if they don’t comply, according to the lawmakers. The monitor would also have to release a report every quarter on efforts by the college or university to combat antisemitism and would issue recommendations.

Torres said he and his office have spoken with Jewish students who feel “deeply unsafe, purely as a result of their religious and ethnic identity.”

Adam Lehman, president and CEO of Hillel International said Friday the pro-Palestinian encampments at university campuses nationwide are “not an issue of free speech.”

“We’re talking about students who god-forbid show their Jewish identity publicly having a kippah or other aspects of their identity literally ripped from their bodies. This is beyond unacceptable,” Lehman said Friday at a joint press conference with Jewish student leaders and heads of other Jewish organizations held at Columbia University.

Lehman decried universities that aren’t enforcing policies that he said are meant to protect students from harassment. University presidents, however, have received considerable backlash over suppressing free speech for their efforts to disband encampments on campuses including, in some cases, authorizing police to make arrests.

Hillel as an organization supports the right to free speech, Lehman said, adding that “our students are desperate for dialogue.”

“But when the debate that’s taking place results in the intimidation and harassment and silence of one part of that community, there is not free speech for everyone,” he said.

Brian Cohen, executive director at Columbia and Barnard’s Hillel, echoed Lehman’s remarks at Friday’s press conference.

 Students are seen in front of the Sciences Po University in Paris on Friday.

Dozens of police officers dressed in riot gear are outside one of the campus buildings at Sciences Po University in Paris on Friday, appearing to prepare to break up a pro-Palestinian blockade in the main campus building of the major French university.

Police are lined up with riot shields facing the students. Many students are sitting on the ground, waving Palestinian flags and chanting.

A total of 36 demonstrators at Ohio State University were arrested on Thursday night after refusing dispersal orders, according to a preliminary report from the university.

Of the 36 arrested, 20 were not affiliated with the university and 16 were students, according to university spokesperson Benjamin Johnson.

Students and faculty members of Emory University who were arrested on Thursday morning during a pro-Palestinian protest on the university’s campus will not have any release restrictions placed on them, according to DeKalb County Magistrate Court Judge E. Ann Guerrant. 

Guerrant made the ruling after Amy Adelman, Interim Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Emory University, appeared before the court and said the university did not want any restrictions for Emory faculty, staff and students. 

One of those making their first appearance on Friday was Emory University Economics professor Caroline Fohlin. She was one of two professors CNN witnessed being detained during a pro-Palestinian protest on the university’s campus Thursday morning. 

The attorney for Fohlin had advised the court that Emory University did not want any special conditions placed on her bond, shortly before Adelman joined the court proceedings via Zoom. 

According to her attorney, Fohlin is a tenured professor who has been with the university for 13 years. He said she is “situated differently” from the other defendants because she does not have a set schedule and is in and out of meetings every day. 

Fohlin was charged with disorderly conduct and simple battery against a police officer, according to DeKalb County Jail records. When asked if she understood the charges against her, she replied: “Basically.” 

The judge granted Fohlin a $50 cash bond with no special conditions for release.