Police have arrested at least 25 pro-Palestinian protesters and cleared an encampment at the University of Virginia (UVA), as campuses across the United States brace for more unrest during graduation ceremonies.
Tensions flared at UVA’s Charlottesville campus, where protests had been largely peaceful, until police in riot gear were seen in a video Saturday morning moving across a encampment on the campus lawn, some protesters with them They were tied with cable ties and what appeared to be some chemical spray used.
Across the United States, students at dozens of universities have gathered or set up tents to protest the months-long war in Gaza and call on President Joe Biden, who has supported Israel, to do more to stop the bloodshed in Gaza.
They are also demanding that their schools divest from companies that support the Israeli government, such as arms suppliers.
UVA said in a statement that the protesters violated several university policies, including setting up tents on Friday evening and using amplified sound.
UVA President Jim Ryan wrote in a message that officials learned that “individuals unaffiliated with the university” and expressing “some safety concerns” had joined protesters on campus.
It was not immediately clear how many of those arrested were UVA students.
In a post on Instagram, a group called UVA Encampment for Gaza, which said it had set up the camp earlier this week, condemned the university’s decision to call police.
Meanwhile, dozens of people were arrested for “criminal trespassing” at a demonstration Saturday outside the Art Institute of Chicago after the institute called police to remove protesters who were allegedly illegally occupying its property, the Chicago Police Department said on X .
Elsewhere, the clashes did not escalate into arrests. In Ann Arbor, pro-Palestinian protesters briefly disrupted a commencement ceremony at the University of Michigan, one of many universities that had changed their security protocols for graduation ceremonies.
Videos shared on social media showed dozens of students wearing the traditional keffiyeh headdress and graduation caps and waving Palestinian flags as they walked down the center aisle of Michigan Stadium to cheers and boos from a crowd of thousands.
The ceremony continued and campus police escorted protesters to the back of the stadium, but no arrests were made, according to Colleen Mastony, a university spokeswoman.
“Peaceful protests like this have taken place at UM [University of Michigan] Opening ceremonies for decades,” Mastony said in a statement. “The University supports free speech and expression, and University leaders are pleased that today’s commencement was such a proud and triumphant moment.”
One of the most common chants from demonstrators at the University of Michigan was: “Discover, dispossess. “We will not stop, we will not rest,” said Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Ann Arbor.
“According to the faculty and students we spoke to, they said they did not receive a satisfactory response to address students’ needs. “The university has not agreed to disclose its investments in Israel,” he said.
In recent weeks there have been heated disagreements at US universities over the Israeli war in Gaza. Many schools, including Columbia University in New York City, have called police to quell the protests.
Police have so far arrested more than 2,000 protesters at colleges across the country.
The anti-war protests in the United States are a response to the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, where more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October and the Palestinian enclave has been razed to the ground in what human rights experts call genocide.
The attacks began after the Palestinian group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack inside Israel on October 7, killing nearly 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Outrage over the Ole Miss incident
Campus protests have emerged as a new political flashpoint in a hard-fought and deeply divisive US election year.
On Thursday, a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, was greeted by a large crowd of counter-protesters singing the national anthem and carrying U.S. flags.
The events at Ole Miss, the state’s flagship university, sparked widespread outrage and condemnation after a viral video showed a group of mostly white students taunting a black protester.
Some shouted racist comments and one person was heard making what sounded like monkey noises toward the black student.
While the university’s chancellor condemned the “racist undertones” of the incident and said an investigation was underway, Republican Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia shared the video on his X account on Friday, saying, “Ole Miss cares the business.”
A spokesman for Collins said he pointed to examples of “ordinary, everyday students fighting back against the very small group of left-wing agitators who only care about disrupting and destroying.”
But the taunts sparked sharp criticism on and off campus.
“Students demanded an end to the genocide. They faced racism,” James M. Thomas, a sociology professor at the University of Mississippi, wrote on X.