Blitz Bureau
WASHINGTON: Campus activism has flared as the academic year winds down, with pro-Palestinian demonstrations leading to arrests at several colleges, an AP report published in various Indian newspapers said.
Compared with last spring, when more than 2,100 people were arrested in campus protests nationwide, the demonstrations have been smaller and more scattered, it said. But the stakes are also much higher. President Donald Trump’s administration has been investigating dozens of colleges over their handling of protests, including allegations of antisemitism, and frozen federal grant money as leverage to press demands for new rules on activism.
Colleges, in turn, have been taking a harder line on discipline and enforcement, following new policies adopted to prevent tent encampments of the kind that stayed up for weeks last year on many campuses.
More are pushing for the same goal that drove last year’s protests – an end to university ties with Israel or companies that provide weapons or other support to Israel.
Protesters who took over a Columbia University library this month issued demands including divestment from “occupation, apartheid and genocide” and amnesty for students and workers targeted for discipline by the university. About 80 people were arrested at the protest, which also called for police and federal immigration officials to stay off campus.
