Charles Langston:What's the latest on pro-Palestinian campus protests? More arrests as graduations approach

As universities inch closer to the end of their school years and Charles Langstonhighly anticipated graduation celebrations, a nationwide student protest movement in support of Palestinians has stretched on for weeks, amid a wave of student arrests and standoffs with police.

Another round of graduation ceremonies will kick off this weekend, with some schools having to make alternate plans for their speakers and commencement locations due to ongoing police presence or student demonstrations.

Thousands of students and other protesters have been arrested since April 18, when police raided an encampment at Columbia University that kicked off a wave of activism at colleges. The students are protesting Israel’s war in Gaza and demanding that their universities cut financial and academic ties with Israel. At some schools including Brown University and the University of California at Riverside, school officials have struck deals with students to peacefully end the encampments. 

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians there, according to officials in Gaza, since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostage.

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Some of the latest arrests came early Friday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, and late Thursday at the University of Arizona. Police in riot gear detained dozens of people. 

Here’s where things stand on campuses:

Developments:

∎ Students at the Rhode Island School of Design ended a four-day occupation of a campus building after the school's president threatened them with expulsion on Thursday, the Providence Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported. The students were also directed to undergo a "restorative justice" process that includes listening to people who were affected by the occupation and restoring the building.

∎ Southern California schools Pomona College and Occidental College are facing civil rights complaints lodged by the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on Thursday, claiming that they allowed "severe discrimination and harassment of Jewish students" amid student protests since Oct. 7.

∎ A professor at the University of Texas at Austin was arrested and fired this week over a confrontation with state troopers during a pro-Palestinian protest on campus on April 29, Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported. Richard Heyman was charged with interfering with public duties and accused of yelling expletives, attempting to "breach" a police line and damaging a police bicycle bell. Heyman's lawyer, Gerry Morris, said Heyman was pushed by a trooper and grabbed the bike to prevent himself from falling.

Weeks in to protests, arrests still being made

About 33 people were arrested at the University of Pennsylvania on Friday, the campus public safety department said. Philadelphia officers dismantled tents and tossed belongings into a trash truck during the crackdown at about 6 a.m., according to the Daily Pennsylvanian. The encampment at Penn had been ongoing for 16 days, according to the student paper.

Another 10 people were arrested on MIT’s campus early in the morning, when police cleared an encampment that had been on the campus since April 21, University President Sally Kornbluth said in a statement, calling the action a “last resort” after failed discussions between university officials and protest organizers. The people arrested were “peacefully” escorted off the lawn, she said, but added that the tensions on campus fueled by the protest were not heading in a peaceful direction.

“I had no choice but to remove such a high-risk flashpoint at the very center of our campus,” Kornbluth said.

In Tucson, police fired tear gas canisters into a crowd of demonstrators and tore down the encampment at the University of Arizona, the Associated Press reported. The school said in a statement that a structure “made from wooden pallets and other debris” violated campus policy, but didn’t say if any people were arrested.

Protests have sprung up in other countries, too. Police moved in on protesters at an encampment at the University of Calgary in western Canada on Thursday, using what they called “non-lethal munitions.” The city said it would release the number of arrests made on Friday.

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Schools plan for graduation amid demonstrations on campus

Some universities are preparing alternate plans or canceling speakers in light of protests on campus. Friday will mark the start of smaller school-level graduation ceremonies at Columbia, which announced it had canceled its large university-wide mainstage celebration that had been scheduled for May 15.

Outside Columbia’s athletic facilities in Manhattan, where smaller graduation ceremonies are set to be held about 100 blocks north from Columbia’s main campus, police officers and barricades were stationed Friday along Broadway and West 218th Street.

At Xavier University in Louisiana, Saturday's planned commencement speech by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield was axed after students expressed outrage at her stance on the war, the Associated Press reported. It's at least the second planned speech by Thomas-Greenfield to be canceled amid student protests; she was also removed from the commencement program by the University of Vermont.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead also announced he would no longer be delivering a speech at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on May 18th, calling the university's decision to call police on student protesters "a shameful act." Police arrested more than 130 people at the school and removed an encampment earlier this week.

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The University of Southern California, which sparked outrage last month when it canceled a valedictorian speech and later announced its mainstage graduation was also canceled, hosted an alternate party for graduates and their family members Thursday night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

Last weekend, protesters interrupted graduation proceedings at the University of Michigan and Indiana University Bloomington. At IU’s ceremony, a plane could be seen flying overhead carrying pro-Palestinian messages, and a group of students walked out, Fox 59 reported.

Contributing: Eduardo Cuevas, USA TODAY; Reuters