Columbia University canceled in-person classes, dozens of protesters were arrested at Yale University and the gates of Harvard Yard were closed to the public on Monday as some of the most prestigious US universities sought to defuse campus tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas.
The various actions follow the arrest last week of more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators camped out on the Columbia lawn as schools do not know where to accommodate. draw a line between allowing freedom of expression and maintaining a safe and inclusive campus.
In addition to demonstrations at Ivy League schools, pro-Palestinian camps have sprung up on other campuses, including the University of Michigan, New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The protests have pitted students against each other, with pro-Palestinian students demanding that their schools condemn Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip and divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel. Meanwhile, some Jewish students say much of the criticism of Israel has veered into anti-Semitism and made them feel unsafe, and they note that Hamas is still holding hostages taken during the group’s Oct. 7 invasion.
Tensions remained high Monday at Columbia in New York, where campus gates were closed to anyone without a school ID and where protests broke out both on and off campus.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning, a North Carolina Democrat visiting Columbia with three other Jewish members of Congress, told reporters after meeting with Jewish Law Students Association students that there was a “huge encampment of people” who occupied about a third of the green space.
“We saw signs that Israel was going to be destroyed,” she said after leaving the Morningside Heights campus.
A woman inside the campus gate led about two dozen protesters outside, chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” is a tense phrase that can mean completely different things to different groups. Meanwhile, a small group of pro-Israel counter-demonstrators protested nearby.
University President Minouche Shafiq said in a message to the school community Monday that she was “deeply saddened” by what was happening on campus.
“To reduce tensions and give us all a chance to consider next steps, I am announcing that all classes will be held virtually on Monday,” Shafiq wrote, noting that students who do not live on campus should stay away.
Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots football team and funded the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life across from Columbia University’s campus, said he was suspending donations to the university.
“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and employees, and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective measures are taken,” he said in a statement.
Protests spread across many college campuses following the rise of Hamas fatal attack in southern Israel, when gunmen killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. In response, Israel killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but says at least two thirds of the dead were children and women.
Prahlad Iyengar, an MIT graduate student studying electrical engineering, was among about two dozen students who camped out on the school’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Sunday evening. They are calling for a ceasefire and protesting what they call MIT’s “complicity in the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“MIT didn’t even call for a ceasefire, and we certainly have that demand,” Iyengar said.
He also said MIT is sending out confusing rules for protests.
“We are here to demonstrate that we reserve the right to protest. It’s an integral part of life on a college campus,” Iyengar said.
On Sunday, Eli Buechler, rabbi of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Education Initiative in Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to nearly 300 Jewish students, advising them to go home until it was safer for them on campus.
The latest events took place on the eve of the Monday evening of the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Nicholas Baum, a 19-year-old Jewish freshman living at the Jewish Theological Seminary two blocks from the Columbia University campus, said weekend protesters were “calling for Hamas to destroy Tel Aviv and Israel.” He said some of the protesters shouting anti-Semitic slurs were not students.
“Jews are scared in Colombia. It is so simple. There was so much vilification of Zionism, and it resulted in vilification of Judaism,” he said.
A protest camp emerged in Colombia on Wednesday, the same day Shafik faces harsh criticism At congressional hearings, Republicans said she had not done enough to combat anti-Semitism. Two others Ivy League presidents resign several months ago following widely criticized testimony they gave to the same committee.
In a statement Monday, Shafiq said the conflict in the Middle East is terrible and that she understands the deep emotional distress felt by many.
“But we cannot allow one group to dictate terms and try to disrupt important milestones like graduation to push their point of view,” Shafik wrote.
In the coming days, a working group of deans, school administrators and teachers will try to find a solution to the university crisis, Shafik said, without specifying when in-person classes will resume.
US House Republicans from New York have called on Shafik to resign, saying letter She said Monday that she had failed to provide a safe learning environment in recent days as “anarchy gripped the campus.”
In Massachusetts, a sign said Harvard Yard was closed to the public on Monday. It said structures, including tents and tables, were only allowed into the yard with prior permission. “Students who violate these rules will be subject to disciplinary action,” the sign read. Security guards checked people’s school IDs.
At Yale University, officers arrested about 45 protesters and charged them with trespassing, said Officer Christian Brookhart, a New Haven police spokesman. According to him, everyone was released on a promise to appear in court later.
Protesters set up tents in Beinecke Square on Friday and demonstrated over the weekend calling on Yale to stop any investments in defense companies that do business with Israel.
Nadine Qubeisi, a Yale student and one of the protest organizers, said she was alarmed that “this university that I attend, that I contribute to, and that my friends give money to, is using that money to fund violence.”
In a statement to the campus community on Sunday, Yale President Peter Salovey said university officials have spoken repeatedly with student protesters about the school’s policies and guidelines, including regarding speech and allowing access to campus facilities.
School officials said they spoke with protesters for several hours and gave them until the end of the weekend to leave Beinecke Plaza. They said they warned protesters again Monday morning and told them they could face arrest and disciplinary action, including suspension, before police arrived.
A large group of protesters gathered after Monday’s arrests at Yale University and blocked a street near the campus, Brookhart said. There were no reports of any violence or injuries.
Last week, the University of Southern California took an unusual step: cancellation of scheduled opening speech his farewell speech in 2024, which publicly supported the Palestinians. The university cited security concerns in its decision, which was praised by some pro-Israel groups but criticized by free speech advocates.
Several students at Columbia University and its sister school Barnard College said they were suspended for participating in last week’s protests, including a Barnard student. Isra Hirsidaughter of Democratic US House of Representatives member Ilhan Omar.