April 28, 2024 - US university protests

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks during a press conference in 2023.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass says the decision by University of Southern California leaders to cancel the school’s main commencement ceremony for 2024 graduating students in May was necessary due to safety concerns.

“I believe that that was a decision that they had to make,” Bass told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday.

“They were expecting about 65,000 people on campus and they just did not feel that it was going to be safe, and the job of the (university) president, just like my job as mayor — my number one job is to make sure that Angelenos are safe.”

The mayor, herself a USC alumna, pointed out that while the main ceremony had been canceled, individual schools and departments will go forward with their own ceremonies.

Some context: A USC professor who has criticized the school’s response to pro-Palestinian protests told CNN on Saturday that the university’s initial decision to cancel its valedictorian’s commencement speech served as a catalyst for demonstrations at the Los Angeles campus.

Asna Tabassum, a first-generation South Asian-American Muslim, said in a statement published by the Council on American-Islamic Relations that she has “serious doubts about whether USC’s decision to revoke my invitation to speak is made solely on the basis of safety.”

CAIR has accused the school of canceling Tabassum’s speech in response to “attacks and harassment launched by anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian extremists.”

The school announced it was canceling the main commencement ceremony altogether on Friday, days after the decision to cancel the valedictorian speech.

CNN’s Amanda Musa, Alisha Ebrahimji and Melissa Alonso contributed reporting to this post.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell speaks at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on April 23.

Several US lawmakers and other elected officials have spoken in media appearances Sunday about the protests seen across the country in response to Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell criticized what he said was antisemitic rhetoric seen in the protests, saying on CBS that “university presidents need to get control of the situation, allow free speech and push back against antisemitism.”

“We’ve all got to get serious about the challenges ahead of us, engaging in antisemitic behavior in the United States needs to be stood up to by the administrators of these colleges,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin also condemned instances of antisemitic rhetoric, and said Virginia wouldn’t allow protest encampments to be put up at its academic institutions.

“We will protect the ability to peacefully express yourself, but we’re not going to have the kinds of hate speech and intimidation that we’re seeing across the country in Virginia,” the governor told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, meanwhile, pushed back against House Speaker Mike Johnson’s suggestion that the National Guard could be sent to college campuses amid the protests, calling it a “very, very bad idea.”

“I think calling in the National Guard to college campuses for so many people would recall what happened when that was done during the Vietnam War — and it didn’t end well,” Kaine said on “Meet the Press.”

“There are other ways, using campus security, but also offering students more opportunities to have dialogue that is civil and constructive where people hear one another — that’s by far preferable,” he added. 

Palestinian students hold signs in Rafah, Gaza, on April 28.

Dozens of Palestinian students staged a display of solidarity at a demonstration in southern Gaza on Sunday to express gratitude for the support seen on US college campuses in recent weeks.  

Video from the Shaboura refugee camp in Rafah shows children holding banners with messages that read: “Students of Columbia University, continue to stand by us,” and “Violating our right to education and life is a war crime.”   

The students gathered around makeshift tents near a school that now serves as a shelter for Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza. Footage shows people spray-painting messages of gratitude on the fabric of the tents, saying “Thank you, students in solidarity with Gaza. Your message has reached.”

A man writes a message of thanks to students in the US protesting in solidarity with the people of Gaza, on a tent at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, Gaza, on April 27.

Takfeer Abu-Yousuf, a displaced student from the northern city of Beit Hanoun, told CNN he felt it was necessary to thank the students in the US who “supported us with their humanity.”

Eighteen-year-old Rana Al-Taher pointed to the school in the camp, telling CNN that what should have been a place for learning and education has become a place for sheltering.   

“That means that we have lost our education. We have lost our only hope in Gaza and we want it back. We’re here to ask for it back. It’s our right to have it back … that’s why we’re here,” she said.

Read the full story here.

With tension mounting over an encampment in support of Palestinians at New York’s Columbia University, police strode onto campus this month and arrested more than 100 demonstrators.

Soon, dozens more students protesting the monthslong assault on Gaza were arrested at New York and Yale universities. At the University of Texas at Austin, police in riot gear and on horseback moved to disperse a like-minded demonstration, while nearly 100 at the University of Southern California also got arrested. Then at Emory University in Atlanta, law enforcement deployed pepper balls to break up a pro-Palestinian action, arresting 28, including several professors. And at Boston’s Emerson College, another 108 protesters were arrested, with four officers hurt.

While the latest run of arrests has commanded outsized attention, US colleges have been using law enforcement — along with academic suspensions and, for at least one school, expulsion — to try to rein in student demonstrations since Hamas’ October attack on Israel left more than 1,200 dead and dozens taken hostage. Israel’s devastating counterpunch in Gaza – with more than 34,000 Palestinians killed, according to its health ministry – has further fueled deeply held views of students and faculty on all sides.

Amid US students’ broad insistence their tactics are peaceful, administrators often have decried campus protests as disruptive, with some — including at Indiana University, George Washington University and California State Polytechnic University’s Humboldt campus — employing school rules governing use of public spaces to threaten or enact discipline, or call for police backup.

Administrators lately have seemed quicker to levy consequences against campus demonstrators than they were six months ago, according to Zach Greenberg of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Read more about the crackdown here.

People stand near a vandalized statue at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, on April 27.

The University of Southern California says campus property was vandalized Saturday “by individuals who are part of the group that has continued to illegally camp on our campus.”

The Tommy Trojan statue and a fountain in Alumni Park were vandalized, the university said, without elaborating on the type of damage they sustained. University officials also did not state what led them to believe the perpetrators were among those taking part in encampment demonstrations.

Video footage from CNN affiliate KABC showed the words “Say No to Genocide” spray-painted on the base of the Tommy Trojan statue.

“While the university fully supports freedom of expression, these acts of vandalism and harassment are absolutely unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Curran said.

University President Carol Folt has made attempts to meet with students, “but they have declined these offers,” Curran said.

Remember: Demonstrators at universities across the country have organized in protest of Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, in many cases calling on the schools to disinvest from Israeli institutions and other entities they say benefit from the war.

A USC professor who has criticized the school’s response to protests told CNN on Saturday that the university’s decision to cancel its Muslim valedictorian’s commencement speech, citing safety concerns, served as a catalyst for demonstrations at the Los Angeles campus.

This post has been updated with additional information about the protests at USC.

Dozens of police cars lined the streets as a large group of officers swarmed the University of Southern California Saturday night, video from CNN affiliate KABC shows.

The Los Angeles Police Department issued a “tactical alert” Saturday amid the pro-Palestinian protest at USC, CNN affiliate KCBS reported. No arrests had been reported as of early Sunday and it’s unclear what prompted the move.

The university posted a message on social media Friday night that said the University Park campus will be temporarily closed due to a “disturbance.”

USC has served as the backdrop of demonstrations tied to the school’s valedictorian speech cancellation and as part of the nationwide campus pro-Palestinian protests.

Arizona State University Police arrested 72 people, 15 of whom are students, on Friday in connection to an encampment on campus, university officials said Saturday.

Of the 72 people arrested and charged with criminal trespass, “about 80 percent of those arrested were not students,” the release said.

“While the university will continue to be an environment that embraces freedom of speech, ASU’s first priority is to create a safe and secure environment that supports teaching and learning,” the university said in the release.

Members of law enforcement and police officers intervene during a pro-Palestinian student protest at University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, on April 24.

With tension mounting over an encampment in support of Palestinians at New York’s Columbia University, police strode onto campus this month and arrested more than 100 demonstrators.

Soon, dozens more students protesting the monthslong assault on Gaza were arrested at New York University and Yale University. At the University of Texas at Austin, police in riot gear and on horseback moved to disperse a like-minded demonstration, while nearly 100 at the University of Southern California also got arrested. Then at Emory University in Atlanta, law enforcement deployed pepper balls to break up a pro-Palestinian action, arresting 28, including several professors. And at Boston’s Emerson College, another 108 protesters were arrested, with four officers hurt.

On the cusp of the close of the academic year, university communities across the nation remain on edge, not only over flares of political action but also what response, if any, it might compel.

While the latest run of arrests has commanded outsized attention, US colleges have been using law enforcement – along with academic suspensions and, for at least one school, expulsion – to try to bring to heel student demonstrations since Hamas’ October attack on Israel left more than 1,200 dead and dozens taken hostage. Israel’s devastating counterpunch in Gaza – with more than 34,000 Palestinians killed, according to its health ministry – has further fueled deeply held views of students and faculty on all sides.

Amid US students’ broad insistence their tactics are peaceful, administrators often have decried campus protests as disruptive, with some – including at Indiana University, George Washington University and California State Polytechnic University’s Humboldt campus – employing school rules governing use of public spaces to threaten or enact discipline or call for police backup.

Implicit in the crackdowns is a built-in tension of higher education: balancing the role of campuses as bastions of free speech while ensuring the safety of students, including those who are Jewish and have expressed concern for their well-being in the face of antisemitism that’s surged nationally since October 7 and has occasionally been seen at or near – or conflated with – pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations.

Administrators lately have seemed quicker to levy consequences against campus demonstrators than they were six months ago, according to Zach Greenberg of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

But, he said, calling in police carries risk.

It is a “drastic action” that “should be reserved for only the most direct and severe threats to campus safety,” Greenberg said. Further, doing so threatens to “erode” the trust between universities and students, who may see “police officers in riot gear arresting their classmates, maybe their professors.”

Read the full story here.

More than 80 people were arrested at Washington University in St. Louis on Saturday amid ongoing Pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the university said in a statement.

A group of demonstrators, which included students, employees and individuals not associated with the university, marched at multiple locations on campus where they “pitched tents, and indicated that they did not intend to leave,” the university said.

“When the group began to set up a camp in violation of university policy, we made the decision to tell everyone present that they needed to leave,” the statement said. Dozens were arrested after they “refused to leave after being asked multiple times.”

Presidential candidate Jill Stein was among those arrested Saturday at the university, her campaign’s communications director previously said, adding that “we are not aware of any charges at this time.”

The University of Southern California has closed its University Park campus temporarily, the school announced on Saturday night.

“Due to a disturbance, the University Park Campus is temporarily closed except for residents,” the university posted on X.

The university has been the backdrop to ongoing pro-Palestinian protests, CNN has previously reported.

Some context: Nearly 100 people were arrested after the university ordered protestors at the campus’ Alumni Park to disperse Wednesday. Protesters are demanding “full amnesty” for those brought into custody and “no policing on campus.” This week, the university canceled its main stage commencement ceremony set for next month, after sparking criticism by canceling Asna Tabassum’s valedictorian commencement speech.