Pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked US campuses for weeks were more muted on Friday after a series of clashes with police, mass arrests and a stern White House directive to restore order.
Police in Manhattan cleared an encampment at New York University after sunrise, with video posted to social media by an official showing protesters exiting their tents and dispersing when ordered by loudspeaker.
The scene appeared relatively calm compared to crackdowns at other campuses around the country — and some worldwide — where protests over Israel’s war in Gaza have multiplied in recent weeks.
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University administrators, who have tried to balance the right to protest and complaints of violence and hate speech, have increasingly called on police to clear out the protesters ahead of year-end exams and graduation ceremonies — and some clashes with counter-protesters.
More than 2,000 arrests have been made in the past two weeks across the United States, some during violent confrontations with police, giving rise to accusations of over-use of force.
President Joe Biden, who has faced pressure from all political sides over the Israel-Hamas war, gave his first expansive remarks on the protests on Thursday, saying that “order must prevail”.
“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” Biden said in a televised statement from the White House.
“But neither are we a lawless country. We’re a civil society, and order must prevail.”
His remarks came hours after police moved in on demonstrators at University of California, Los Angeles, which had seen a violent confrontation when counter-protesters attacked a fortified encampment there.
A large police contingent forcibly cleared the sprawling encampment early Thursday while flashbangs were launched to disperse crowds gathered outside.
Schools officials said that over 200 people were arrested.
On the opposite US coast on Thursday, protesters at New Jersey’s Rutgers University agreed to take down their camp after reaching a compromise with administrators, like a similar deal at other institutions, including Brown University.
Republicans have accused Biden of being soft on what they say is anti-Semitic sentiment among the protesters, while he faces opposition in his own party for his strong support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
“There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for anti-Semitism, or threats of violence against Jewish students,” Biden said.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona echoed the condemnation in a letter to university leaders on Friday and pledging to investigate reports of anti-Semitism “aggressively,” CNN reported.
Meanwhile, similar student protests have popped up in countries around the world, including in Australia, France, Mexico and Canada.
In Paris, police moved in to clear students staging a sit-in at the Sciences Po university.
An encampment has grown at Canada’s prestigious McGill University, where administrators on Wednesday demanded it be taken down “without delay.”
However, police had yet to take action against the site as of Friday morning.