Police nab 200 in US campus clearances

Activists are calling for a ceasefire, as well as for colleges to sever ties with Israel and companies they say profit from the conflict.

Pro-Palestinian protesters front a police barricade Northeastern University in Boston on Saturday. Picture: AFP

Police detained nearly 200 people at three US univer­sities on Saturday (Sunday AEST) as they cleared pro-Palestinian encampments, in the latest campus clashes triggered by protests over Israel’s war against Hamas.

On the east coast, police in Boston detained about 100 people while clearing a protest camp at Northeastern University, with ­security forces in riot gear and officers loading tents on to the back of a truck.

The action was taken after some protesters resorted to “virulent anti-Semitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews’,” Northeastern University said on X.

On the opposite side of the country, Arizona State University police arrested 69 people for trespassing after the group set up an “unauthorised encampment” on campus.

Arizona State officials said a protest group, most of whom were “not ASU students, faculty or staff”, had set up a camp on Friday and then ignored repeated orders to disperse.

In the US heartland, police at Indiana University arrested 23 people as they cleared a campus protest camp.

Police with shields, batons and other riot gear broke through a line of protesters who had linked arms, tackling those who did not move, the Indiana Daily Student newspaper reported.

The campus activists are calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas, as well as for colleges to sever ties with the country and with companies they say profit from the conflict.

The protests have posed a major challenge to university administrators, who are trying to balance commitments to free expression with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and hate speech.

Police have carried out large-scale arrests at universities in recent days, at times using chemical irritants and Tasers to disperse demonstrators.

Dozens of students remained encamped on Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania, despite the college president ordering disbandment after what he said were “credible reports of harassing and intimidating conduct”.

Meanwhile, Columbia University in New York, where the protests originated, was relatively calm. Officials there on Friday announced they would not be calling police back to campus after more than 100 people were arrested last week. “To bring back the NYPD at this time would be counterproductive, further inflaming what is happening on campus, and drawing thousands to our doorstep who would threaten our community,” school leaders said in a statement, referring to the New York Police Department.