May 3, 2024 - US college protests

Our live coverage of the protests at colleges across the US has moved here.

In a still from a video by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance commencement ceremony.

Protesters interrupted the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD)commencement ceremony Friday, according to a video from a reporter with CNN affiliate Richmond Times-Dispatch.  

Several protesters entered the Hill Auditorium with pro-Palestinian signs and flags. A person was heard yelling “get out” as the protesters walked through the auditorium. 

Police arrived soon after the incident, according to the Times-Dispatch.

CNN has reached out to the University of Michigan and its School of Music, Theatre & Dance for comment.  

Later Friday evening, a large group of protesters were met with police on the University of Michigan’s campus on Friday evening. The group was outside the Museum of Art on campus and was heard chanting while interacting with police.

Some context: Commencements at the University of Michigan are ongoing with programs hosting separate ceremonies with distinguished speakers. Spring graduation is scheduled for the whole university on Saturday at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. There will be a designated area for protests outside ceremony venues, the University of Michigan said on its website, noting all commencement events will include security screenings, prohibit banners and flags, and be monitored by volunteers who will immediately “respond to disruptions, beginning with warnings.”

This post has been updated with information from CNN affiliate the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

A USC Department of Public Safety vehicle sits next to the base of the Tommy Trojan statue that was tagged in Hahn Plaza at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, on April 28, 2024.

The University of Southern California started a disciplinary process for campus members “who have violated both our policies and the law,” President Carol L. Folt said in a statement Friday. 

The university will take any further action needed to keep the campus safe and maintain legal obligations, Folt said. 

USC will hold a “family graduate celebration” on May 9, the school announced Friday, just over a week after canceling the main graduation ceremony.

Police prepare to break past barriers and onto a pro-Palestinian encampment on the UCLA campus on May 2 in Los Angeles.

More than 2,100 people have been arrested on college and university campuses across the nation since April 18 as schools prepare for spring commencement ceremonies, according to CNN’s review. The first demonstrators were detained at Columbia University two weeks ago.

Protesters have been arrested on more than 40 campuses across at least 25 states. Many other schools have experienced protests without arrests.

Here are the latest headlines:

More on arrests

Reactions to campus protests

Developments on campus

Pro-Palestinian protesters and activists rally on the University of Chicago campus in Chicago on May 3.

Graduations and commencements:

Votes and agreements

Universities around the world

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, delivers remarks at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on January 30.

The US ambassador to the United Nations will no longer deliver the commencement address at the University of Vermont, according to the school’s president. 

“It is with regret that I share that our planned speaker, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, will not be joining us to deliver the Commencement address,” said President Suresh Garimella.

Some of the protesters on the campus had called on the university to rescind its invitation to Thomas-Greenfield.

Garimella didn’t give a reason for the diplomat’s non-attendance – but it was mentioned in a statement that focused on the demonstrations.

While Garimella said he was “grateful to the students and university leaders who have engaged in conversation,” he noted the demonstrations violated school policies. 

“Those who continue to violate UVM policies do so intentionally despite having been given the opportunity to express themselves within campus rules,” Garimella said. “Therefore, regrettably, appropriate student conduct processes have been initiated for those who have persistently violated university policy.” 

It’s unclear what kind of disciplinary measures are being taken. CNN has reached out to the university for more information. 

A protester sits near a barricade outside Millar Library on the Portland State University campus May 1 in Portland, Oregon.

The library at Portland State University, where protesters took over earlier this week, has been “rendered unusable,” university President Ann Cudd said in a statement Friday. 

The library cannot be occupied right now but the university hopes to reopen it “in time for fall term,” Cudd said. The library team is working on getting remote services and finding alternative spaces for students, she added. 

Cudd also said she postponed her Presidential Investiture Ceremony, which inaugurates her as president, to a later date. 

Columbia University trustee Jeh Johnson voiced support for a Friday message from the school’s president Minouche Shafik in which she called the past two weeks on campus “among the most difficult in Columbia’s history.”

He said that “no constitutional right is absolute or unqualified,” mentioning the students exercising their First Amendment rights.

“Someone has to be in a position to regulate time, place and manner for the exercise of free speech,” he said.

Johnson also said that protecting students is among the university’s main priorities.

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik prepares to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee during a hearing on Columbia University's response to antisemitism in Washington, DC, on April 17. 

The group of protesters who occupied Hamilton Hall on Columbia University’s campus, “crossed a new line,” President Minouche Shafik said in a video message released on X Friday. 

Shafik called the past two weeks on campus “among the most difficult in Columbia’s history.”

“The turmoil and tension, division and disruption have impacted the entire community,” Shafik said in the message, which was just over three minutes long.  

Columbia University students “paid an especially high price,” as a result of the protests, she said. 

The University tried multiple times to come to resolution via dialogue, Shafik said. 

“Academic leaders talked to students for eight days and nights,” she said. “(The) University made a sincere and good offer, but it was not accepted.” 

While many of the protesters on campus were mostly peaceful and “cared deeply,” Shafik said the group that occupied Hamilton Hall “crossed a new line.” 

Shafik called the occupation a “violent act” that affected the safety of students. 

“Every one of us has a role to play in bringing back the values of truth and civil discourse that polarization has severely damaged. Here at Columbia, parallel realities and parallel conversations have walled us off from other perspectives,” Shafik said.

Shafik said she was born in the Middle East “in a Muslim family with many Jewish and Christian friends.” Through her two decades of international work Shafik said she’s realized “people can disagree and still make progress.” 

“The issues that are challenging us, the Palestinian Israeli conflict, antisemitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias have existed for a long time,” Shafik said. “And Columbia, despite being a remarkable institution, cannot solve them, single handedly.”

Shafik urged students to be an example of a better world, one in which people who disagree “do so civilly.”

A pro-Palestinian encampment in the center of the University of Chicago campus is pictured April 30.

The University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos addressed the school’s community about the ongoing encampment, saying the school has “reached that point” and would “intervene” because of disruptions and safety to the campus community. 

The president said the encampment, which is located on the university’s Main Quadrangle, has “created systematic disruption of campus” and “violations of policies have only increased.”

Despite a meeting with a group of protesters to find a way to end the encampment, Alivisatos said they could not find common ground and the demands were “such that we could not accede.”

CNN has reached out to the university and to campus police for more information.

A protest encampment will disband at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) by midnight Friday, as university administration and protesters have reached an agreement regarding investment transparency and study abroad programs.

Though the agreement does not appear to specifically promise divestment, one key tenant is the creation of a task force aimed at removing the university’s endowment from the University of California’s Investments Office.

The student group protesting at the campus encampment is celebrating the agreement, while also pointing out there’s more work to be done.

Wilcox thanked those involved who “navigated the complexities of this week’s events with patience, grace, and civility.”

Gregory L. Fenves is pictured at a press conference in 2015, when he was University of Texas at Austin president.

Emory University’s College of Arts and Sciences faculty senate overwhelmingly approved a vote of no confidence against university President Gregory L. Fenves on Friday. The vote is a condemnation of the choice to call in outside law enforcement officers who violently arrested both students and faculty during a pro-Palestinian protest on campus last week. 

The faculty voted on a motion of no confidence and demand for redress. The result was 358 votes in favor of the motion and 119 votes opposing the motion. About 75% of the College of Arts and Sciences faculty voiced displeasure against Fenves. 

The vote is a symbolic gesture and is not legally binding. The results of the vote will now go to the Board of Trustees, who have the discretion to remove Fenves.

The motion also called for all the charges against faculty and students to be dropped and for the Emory University to pay all legal expenses.

Philosophy Chair Noëlle McAfee, who was among the individuals detained during Thursday’s arrests, told CNN in a phone call, that she does not have confidence that the board of trustee will remove Fenves.

In the motion of no confidence, faculty wrote that Fenves’ words and actions “do not represent the values of ECAS Faculty and the College of Arts and Science.” 

“What was disruptive — profoundly so — was the conduct of the University administration that violated multiple College and University policies and is an affront to everything Emory stands for,” the motion said.

Police officers detain protesters during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Emory University in Atlanta on April 25.

On the day of the protest, Fenves said in a statement, saying “several dozen protestors entered our Atlanta campus and set up an encampment on the Quad, These individuals are largely not affiliated with Emory and were disrupting the university,” suggesting the protest was organized by outside agitators.

Fenves later walked back the statement, apologizing for the “mischaracterization” that protesters were not students.

There were 28 individuals arrested during the protest last Thursday. Of those, 20 were Emory community members the university said in a statement from Cheryl Elliott, Vice President for Public Safety. At least two faculty members were detained during the arrests.

As pro-Palestinian protests have erupted on college campuses nationwide, protesters — including students and faculty — continue to be arrested since the first demonstrators were detained at Columbia University two weeks ago. More than 250 protesters were arrested on May 2, after April 30 saw the largest number of arrests in a day since protests began with nearly 400 arrests, according to a CNN review of university and law enforcement statements.

More than 2,100 people have been arrested on college and university campuses since April 18 as schools prepare for spring commencement ceremonies, according to CNN’s review. The University of Southern California, where nearly 100 protesters were arrested April 24, canceled its primary commencement event. Protesters have been arrested on more than 40 campuses across at least 25 states. Many other schools have experienced protests without arrests.

Protest demands vary from campus to campus, but a major focus is that universities divest from companies with financial ties to Israel amid its war with Hamas. There have also been counter-protests, resulting in clashes at UCLA.

CNN is monitoring campus protests and will continue to update this map with any new arrests.

The University of Southern California will hold a “family graduate celebration” on May 9, the school announced Friday, just over a week after cancelling the main graduation ceremony.

USC previously announced the cancellation of the main stage graduation, saying it would take too much time to process the expected 65,000 attendees given their new safety measures implemented. The new safety measures follow dozens of arrests on USC’s campus in connection with the ongoing protests and the decision to rescind valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s invitation to speak at the ceremony.

The new event will be held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, at 11:30 p.m. ET and is set to include drone shows, fireworks, surprise performances, and the Trojan Marching Band, according to the announcement posted on USC’s website.

“Please join us with your family and loved ones next Thursday to celebrate your accomplishments in a big way – and come together as a Trojan Family,” the announcement states.

Presentation of degrees will take place at commencement ceremonies of individual schools within the university.

The New York City Police Department revised its number of individuals arrested during protests at The New School from 44 to 43, a NYPD spokesperson said Friday.

The number however, is “subject to change because they are not finalized,” the spokesperson noted.

The arrests come after university officials asked police to assist after protesters trespassed into the lobby of the University Center building and a residence hall and set up an encampment blocking students from entering their dorms, CNN previously reported.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations New York chapter on Friday denounced school administrations at New York University, The New School, University of Buffalo and Stony Brook University over the arrests of student protesters.

Nasher also called on district attorneys, including Alvin Bragg of Manhattan, to drop all charges against students who were arrested. 

Demonstrators barricade themselves inside Hamilton Hall at Colombia University on April 30 in New York.

Columbia University released a breakdown of those arrested in Hamilton Hall on Tuesday night. Of the 44 people who were arrested in Hamilton Hall:

The statement was published Thursday evening.  

NYPD officials said onThursday that they arrested 46 people at the university’s then-occupied Hamilton Hall. 

CNN requested additional details regarding individuals unaffiliated with the institution and sought clarification regarding the disparity in arrest figures compared to those provided by the NYPD.

“A significant portion of those who broke the law and occupied Hamilton Hall were outsiders,” a Columbia spokesperson said. “While 14 were Columbia undergraduate students, the majority were a mix of adults, including graduate students, two employees, and outsiders unaffiliated with Columbia University.”

The university said that it is still in the process of doling out disciplinary action saying “the occupiers violated various University policies, but more importantly, they broke the law. Actions have consequences.”

To understand why so many college campuses suddenly have students occupying parts of their campuses, you have to go back to two weeks ago, on April 18, when Columbia University called in the NYPD to bust up an encampment that pro-Palestinian protesters had set up just a day earlier.

In doing so, Columbia’s leadership threw out the playbook for managing protests that universities have honed for decades to keep students safe.

“There is a particular set of tactics that many of us in academia thought was an understood logic that university administrators have used to manage and control protesters,” said Sarah J. Jackson, a professor who studies the role of media and technology in movements for justice at the University of Pennsylvania.

Chief among those tactics: Delaying and distracting.

The administration might tell activists, in good faith, “OK, we hear you and we are going to set up a committee to investigate what it would take to accomplish some of your demands.” Officials might ask the student protest leaders to put together a case to present before the Board of Trustees.

“The protesters don’t necessarily appreciate these tactics, because they’re strategies of control,” Jackson says. “But from my perspective, they’re also strategies that largely have prevented the large-scale violence against protesters on college campuses that we saw in the 1960s.”

Read the full story here.

Police officers stand guard outside of The New School in New York on Friday.

The New School in New York City switched to online learning Friday following protests on campus that resulted in 43 arrests, according to University Spokesperson Amy Malsin in an email to CNN.

School officials requested police assistance after protesters trespassed into the lobby of the University Center building and a residence hall and set up an encampment blocking students from entering their dorms, CNN previously reported.

According to the statement, the move to bring in the New York City Police Department was based on the protesters’ conduct. 

“As offensive as the protesters’ language and posters are to many of us, my decision is about their conduct, not speech. It is also about safety as well as the protesters’ irresponsible conduct,” Shalala wrote.

CNN has not independently verified when the photo was taken or if it's the specific image sent to the FBI by Stanford.

Stanford University officials have sent the FBI a photo of an individual at a campus encampment location who they say appears to be wearing a headband similar to those worn by Hamas members, school officials said this week.

The individual in the photo is masked and the headband is a variation of those worn by members of the Hamas military wing known as the al-Qassam Brigades. 

CNN is unable to independently verify the photo.

“We find this deeply disturbing, as Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the United States government. We have not been able to identify the individual but have forwarded the photo to the FBI,” the statement from the university said. The FBI field office in San Francisco declined CNN’s request to comment.

The university did not provide a photo of the demonstrator in their post but appears to be referencing a photo circulating online and made public by a group called Jews of Stanford, in a letter posted on the Action Network. The Action Network identifies itself as a progressive non-profit tech platform.

Stanford said it is “concerned about the involvement of non-student outsiders in these activities on our campus” but offered no specific information on the photo.

In its letter to the University Jews of Stanford said, “Individuals dressed openly as members of a terrorist organization is unacceptable and must be dealt with swiftly and harshly” warning that not doing so would set “a dangerous standard”

Commencements at the University of Michigan are under way with programs hosting separate ceremonies with distinguished speakers.

Michigan’s School of Public Health held its ceremony Thursday afternoon where alum, Jodi-Ann Burey, a cancer survivor, speaker, writer, creator and host of the podcast Black Cancer, working at the intersections of race, culture and health, used her speech addressing graduates to criticize the administration for refusing to divest from Israel.

The remarks, reported by Inside Higher Ed and streamed on the university’s YouTube page, were met with over a dozen seconds of applause and cheering by audience members.

Spring graduation is scheduled for the whole university on Saturday at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. There will be a designated area for protests outside ceremony venues, the University of Michigan said on its website, noting all commencement events will include security screenings, prohibit banners and flags, and be monitored by volunteers who will immediately “respond to disruptions, beginning with warnings.”