(Daily Signal)—College campuses this week escalated efforts to root out pro-Hamas, anti-Israel occupations, with police making arrests on nine different campuses.
Police have made more than 1,600 arrests in connection with the disruptive, illegal campus occupations since the first one began April 19 at Columbia University, according to an investigation by The Washington Stand. [The Associated Press on Thursday put the number of related arrests at over 2,000.}
Disturbingly, some universities are beginning to cave to protesters’ demands to restore order, even as campus protests become increasingly dominated by people who aren’t students.
The sheer number of anti-Israel campus protests and arrests makes it a bit bewildering to keep track of them all. As of Wednesday, there were at least 1,641 arrests and counting at 33 colleges and universities in 23 states, with at least three more schools threatening to make arrests and more pro-Hamas encampments cropping up daily.
Since so much media coverage obscures this point, it bears repeating that universities have not called in police to arrest protesters simply for exercising their right to free speech, or even for the vile, antisemitic content of that speech.
After asking law enforcement to intervene on two separate occasions, the University of Texas at Austin on Monday issued this representative statement: “Protests are allowed at the University of Texas. Since October and prior to April 24, no fewer than 13 pro-Palestinian free speech events were held on the UT campus, and four more demonstrations have been held since Thursday, largely without incident.”
No, protesters were arrested for deliberately breaking the rules: flouting curfews, setting up tents where no tents were allowed, intimidating other students and impeding their free access and education on campus, and defying orders from law enforcement.
In some instances, protesters broke into campus buildings and barricaded them against campus authorities, declaring that the buildings had been “liberated.” Thus, when protesters were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, they had no one to blame but themselves.
If anything, universities have been reluctant to arrest demonstrators, often waiting days before calling in police. Schools repeatedly pleaded with the lawless mob before authorizing arrests, and then only a fraction of those involved in the illegal encampments are arrested.
Thus, the 40 incidents in which campus demonstrators have been arrested represent only a small fraction of antisemitic activity on college campuses that has been met by a law enforcement response. With that said, here is a timeline of campus arrests since April 19:
Friday, April 19:
- A total of 108 activists were arrested at Columbia University after erecting a pre-dawn tent encampment. Several students were suspended. Several student organizers were briefly suspended, including the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. However, the encampment returned April 21.
Monday, April 22:
- A total of 133 activists were arrested at New York University after a large group, including non-students, illegally crossed police barricades.
- A total of 48 activists were arrested at Yale University, where pro-Hamas demonstrators intimidated Jewish students and struck one in the eye. The activists resisted a lawful order to disperse.
- Three activists were arrested at California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt) in a scuffle with police after protesters illegally occupied an academic building and barricaded it against police.
Tuesday, April 23:
- Nine activists were arrested at the University of Minnesota when police cleared another encampment at the Minneapolis campus.
- Two activists were arrested at the University of South Carolina for creating a disturbance after hours and then refusing a lawful order to disperse.
Wednesday, April 24:
- A total of 93 activists were arrested at the University of Southern California as police cleared an encampment. Activists, including many who weren’t students, struggled against police. At one point they surrounded a police vehicle until police let someone they had arrested go free.
- A total of 57 activists were arrested at the University of Texas at Austin after they refused to disperse and attempted to unlawfully erect an encampment. Nearly half (26) of those arrested were not affiliated with the university. The progressive local prosecutor subsequently dropped all charges against those arrested.
Thursday, April 25:
- Police arrested 108 activists at Emerson College in Boston when officers cleared an illegal encampment.
- Officers arrested 36 activists at Ohio State University when police cleared an illegal encampment. Only 16 were students; 20 were not affiliated with the university.
- Police arrested 33 activists at Indiana University at Bloomington when officers cleared an illegal encampment.
- A total of 28 activists were arrested at Emory University in Atlanta when police cleared an illegal encampment.
- Two activists were arrested at Princeton University when police arrived to clear an illegal encampment. After officers began making arrests, the rest of the occupiers voluntarily packed up their tents to avoid arrest.
- One activist, a grad student, was arrested at the University of Connecticut for assaulting an officer who was attempting to detain another student.
Friday, April 26:
- Police arrested 44 activists at the Auraria Higher Education Center, where they had illegally occupied campus buildings and damaged campus property. Auraria serves as a campus for the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the University of Colorado Denver.
- Three activists were arrested at Arizona State University in connection with an illegal encampment that would not be cleared until the next day.
- Two activists were arrested at the University of Illinois when police cleared an illegal encampment. The two men, not students, were charged with “mob action.” One also was charged with obstructing a peace officer and the other with aggravated battery of a peace officer.
Saturday, April 27:
- 100 activists were arrested at the University of Washington, St. Louis when police cleared an illegal encampment. (This number seems suspiciously round, but efforts to obtain a more precise total bore no fruit; therefore, I will proceed as if this was the total.) Among those arrested were 23 students and four school employees, leaving approximately 73 not affiliated with the school. Jill Stein, the 2024 presidential candidate for the Green Party, was one of those arrested.
- 98 activists were arrested at Northeastern University in Boston at a demonstration that evidently crossed some lines. The demonstration was “infiltrated by professional organizers,” according to a school spokeswoman, which led the school to shut it down. Anyone who could produce a valid school ID card was not arrested. Among the 98 protesters who could not, 29 were students and six were school employees, leaving 63 not affiliated with the school.
- 69 activists were arrested at Arizona State University when police cleared an illegal encampment. Of the total of 72 arrested at ASU between Friday and Saturday, only 15 were students; 57 were unaffiliated with the school.
- 12 activists were arrested at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, when police cleared an illegal encampment and they refused to leave. The university expressed safety concerns over unaffiliated individuals joining the demonstration. Of those arrested, nine were students and three were unaffiliated with the school.
Sunday, April 28:
- Two activists were arrested at the University of Pittsburgh for illegally trespassing on a lawn.
Monday, April 29:
- 82 activists were arrested at Virginia Tech University after students illegally occupied a lawn. Fifty-three were students, leaving 29 who were not affiliated with the school.
- 79 activists were arrested at the University of Texas at Austin after they again attempted to erect an illegal encampment. Only 34 were students while 45 were not affiliated with the school.
- 20 activists were arrested at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland after students illegally erected tents during a protest.
- 19 activists were arrested at the University of Utah when police cleared an illegal encampment. Those arrested included four students, one school employee, and 14 unaffiliated individuals.
- 16 activists were arrested at the University of Georgia when police cleared an illegal encampment, . including 11 students and five unaffiliated individuals. The university subsequently suspended some of those arrested. “Personally, I did not expect to be suspended,” complained one suspended student, Zeena Mohamed. But college is supposed to be a place where students learn new things, after all.
- 13 activists were arrested at Princeton after protesters illegally occupied a campus building.
- 13 activists were arrested at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond when police cleared an illegal encampment. Six were students and seven were not affiliated with the school.
- Six students were arrested at Tulane University in connection with an illegal encampment. Only one was a student; the other five were not affiliated with the university.
- Three activists were arrested at the University of South Florida when the Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society held an unauthorized rally. The school’s SDS chapter had been suspended for causing a disruption on campus at a previous event.
Tuesday, April 30:
- 173 activists were arrested at the City College in New York (CCNY) when police were called because of “specific and repeated acts of violence and vandalism.” Both students and “unaffiliated external individuals” refused to leave. The New York Police Department cleared CCNY around the same time that they cleared protesters at Columbia University for the second time.
- 119 activists were arrested at Columbia University. Activists had illegally occupied the campus for more than a week, causing it to be closed. They recently broke into and barricaded a campus building, which they renamed and declared “liberated.” Police used a large truck to enter the building through a second-floor window.
- 36 activists were arrested at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after they refused to obey a lawful order to disperse. Demonstrators had taken down an American flag and replaced it with a Palestinian flag. Of those arrested, 13 were students and 23 were not affiliated with the university.
- 32 activists were arrested at Cal Poly Humboldt after they illegally occupied a campus building for more than a week. Those arrested included 13 students, one faculty member, and 18 unaffiliated individuals.
- 25 activists were arrested at the University of Connecticut when police cleared an illegal encampment.
- 16 activists were arrested at the University of New Mexico after they illegally occupied a campus building. Five of those arrested were students and 11 were not affiliated with the university.
- 14 activists were arrested at Tulane University when police cleared an illegal encampment. Two were students and 12 were not affiliated with the university.
- 10 activists were arrested at the University of South Florida after the SDS, the suspended student group, tried to stage another illegal encampment. Seventy-five to 100 protesters came equipped with wooden shields and umbrellas in an attempt to counter law enforcement’s anti-riot tactics, but they were ultimately unsuccessful.
- Nine activists were arrested at the University of Florida when police cleared an illegal encampment. One was charged with battery of a police officer.
Wednesday, May 1:
- 34 activists were arrested at the University of Wisconsin at Madison when police cleared an illegal encampment. Four were charged with resisting arrest and/or battery of a police officer.
- Activists were arrested overnight at the University of Arizona when police cleared an illegal encampment. At publishing time, it was not known how many activists were arrested. [Later reports said police made four arrests.]
There are several noteworthy trends in this progression: 1) universities are acting more quickly to disperse illegal encampments; 2) more universities are calling in police to make arrests; 3) the numbers of those arrested is dwindling; and 4) increasing attention is being drawn to the presence of outside agitators.
These trends suggest several developments. First, university administrators are watching what is happening at other universities. They are witnessing the recalcitrance of pro-Hamas activists, as well as the headaches and monetary damages they have caused at places like Columbia or Cal Poly Humboldt where they were not dealt with quickly.
Administrators also have witnessed the example of the University of Texas at Austin and other schools that have successfully prevented a campus occupation through vigilant policing. These factors motivate university administrators to put an end to protesters’ illegal occupation tactics.
Second, the force of the pro-Hamas wave has dwindled as it has expanded. Protests at elite, radically progressive schools had high energy and significant student involvement. But protests at smaller or less elite schools have seen less student enthusiasm. Arrests have been in higher numbers, and there has been a larger proportion of unaffiliated agitators.
Third, even the most radical protesters can behave rationally. Essentially, they would rather not face consequences for their actions—to the point that they are now begging for amnesty from the same administrators they just poked in the eye. It seems that students are making a risk calculation based upon how they believe law enforcement will respond.
Police have made the most arrests in progressive (that is, anti-law-enforcement) jurisdictions such as New York, Massachusetts, and California. But protests have been smaller across the South and Midwest, suggesting that fewer students are willing to risk arrest and prosecution for the thrill of camping on the university lawn. This also suggests that government officials should consider the incentives they create in how they respond to protests.
Fourth, outside agitators have become involved to an alarming extent. Police made arrests at 22 universities from Saturday to Tuesday; in 11 out of 12 instances where the numbers are known, they arrested more outsiders than students. In multiple instances, these outside agitators participated in illegally occupying campus buildings.
It is unacceptable that a handful of activists, with no connection to a university, can seize its property and hold it hostage to absurd demands.
Circumstances on many university campuses are developing rapidly, and more arrests could follow at any time. Johns Hopkins University has threatened police action against an illegal encampment on its Baltimore campus. Purdue University has threatened ringleaders of an encampment there with disciplinary action. Portland State University in Oregon has closed its campus due to protesters illegally occupying the campus library for two straight days.
As these will not be the last campus arrests related to pro-Hamas protests, neither were they the first. At Brown University, 41 students were arrested in December when they refused to leave a campus building. In March, four students at Vanderbilt University and 22 students and two faculty members at Cornell University were arrested for refusing to leave campus buildings.
The pro-Hamas, antisemitic protests on campus exploded in mid-April, around the Jewish holiday of Passover. The illegal occupation at Columbia gained the most attention, and campus occupations have expanded ever since.
But the activists have gone too far. Universities are fighting back with mass arrests.
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