College protest live updates: Nearly 300 arrested at Columbia and CUNY, UCLA cancels classes, as campus demonstrations intensify

Over the past 24 hours, police arrested hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters at college campuses across the country. Here's the latest on where things stand as night fell on the East Coast.

• Late Tuesday, nearly 300 protesters at Columbia University and City University in New York City were arrested. Police remained on campus Wednesday at the Ivy League college.

• Violent clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters erupted Tuesday night at the University of California, Los Angeles, leading school officials to cancel classes on Wednesday.

• Protesters entered an undergraduate admissions building at Emory University on Wednesday.

• New York police arrested protesters who were occupying the lobby of a building at Fordham University Wednesday afternoon. They also cleared away a tent encampment.

• Students at Portland State University continued to barricade themselves inside the school’s library, escalating a two-day standoff with officials, who canceled classes Wednesday.

• Universities like Brown and Northwestern have diffused protests after pledging to demonstrators this week to take up votes on whether to divest from companies doing business with Israel.

More: Pro-Palestinian protests intensify across U.S. college campuses. Here's where things stand.

On Wednesday, New York police cleared pro-Palestinian protesters from a building on the Fordham University Lincoln Center campus, making at least 15 arrests and clearing an encampment.

The school also asked the NYPD to remain on the campus until May 22:

"With the utmost regret, we request the NYPD's help to clear all individuals from the encampment. As part of this process, we understand that the NYPD plans to use amplifying devices to inform participants in the encampments they must disperse," a letter from the school to NYPD's deputy commissioner of legal matters stated. "In light of the activities that are currently happening, we further request that you retain a presence on campus through at least May 22, 2024 (when Commencement and diploma ceremonies are completed) to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished."

Police cited 30 pro-Palestinian protesters and arrested "several" more on Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after moving in to clear a tent encampment on the campus.

"This morning, those present at the encampment were given several warnings during which time they were offered the opportunity to peacefully leave the encampment with their belongings and avoid being either cited or arrested. These warnings followed prior communications, including two messages from campus leaders, that clearly delineated the expectation of consequences if the encampment was not removed," Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin said in a letter to the campus community, according to CNN.

New York City police arrested at least 15 pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the campus of Fordham University Wednesday evening and dismantled a tent encampment, WABC-TV reported.

NYPD arrived at the campus in riot gear Wednesday afternoon, and quickly sought to push the protesters back using barricades.

Video from the scene showed protesters hanging tarps outside a university building as a crowd cheered them on.

Fifteen people were injured during Tuesday's violent clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators at UCLA, according to Los Angeles officials. One of those injured was hospitalized.

The Los Angeles Fire Department told CNN that a man in his 20s suffered a head injury during the incident, which lasted for hours before police cleared the scene. The man was transported to the hospital.

Yahoo News reporter Katie Mather is at Fordham University at Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side of New York City, where protests were unfolding on Wednesday evening.

NYPD officers were seen wearing helmets and walking around with zip-tie handcuffs.

At West 62nd Street near the school, chants were heard: "I don't see no violence here, why are you wearing riot gear?"

University of California President Michael Drake announced Wednesday that he was launching an investigation of the violent clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters on the UCLA campus Tuesday night and the response from university officials and police.

“I believe such a review can address many of my immediate questions but also help guide us for possible future events,” he wrote in a letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Los Angeles police cleared the campus of protesters around 3 a.m., hours after the violence began.

Read more from the Los Angeles Times.

University of Minnesota interim president Jeff Ettinger met with student protest leaders on Wednesday as demonstrations on the Twin Cities campus continued for a third day.

The pro-Palestinian protesters are demanding the school divest from companies that do business in Israel and release a statement that supports Palestinian students.

The 30-minute meeting turned into 90 minutes because it was a “constructive dialogue,” Ettinger said.

“Both those involved with the protest and our university leaders need to go back and discuss possible outcomes from today’s meeting with our colleagues,” he added. “When we have updates to share, we will provide those.”

The undergraduate class of 2024 is the same class that graduated high school during the pandemic in 2020. The Wall Street Journal calls it “the class that missed out on fun.”

UCLA senior Preston, who asked to go only by his first name, told Yahoo News that he hopes his commencement ceremony doesn’t get canceled. Law enforcement was called to UCLA’s campus Tuesday night as violence erupted among pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The university canceled all of its classes on Wednesday out of concern for student safety.

Preston said he would be frustrated with the UCLA administration and the protesters if graduation were canceled. The ceremony is scheduled for June 14.

“I personally hope that commencement doesn’t get canceled considering how my high school graduation went during COVID,” he said.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to pass the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act.

It comes as pro-Palestinian demonstrations escalate across U.S. university campuses, with great concerns intensifying over antisemitism. The bill would require the Department of Education to use an antisemitism definition put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance when the department enforces federal anti-discrimination laws.

It now heads to the Senate for consideration.

Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who championed the bill with GOP Rep. Mike Lawler, called it a "momentous step towards rooting out antisemitic hate and protecting the rights of Jewish students on college campuses across America."

A huge crowd of protesters gathered in lower Manhattan's Foley Square late Wednesday afternoon in solidarity with Palestinians as part of a May Day event.

New York City's official emergency notification system is warning New Yorkers to prepare for traffic delays near the area.

"Protest Activity: Expect traffic delays & emergency personnel near Foley Square and Broadway, Manhattan. Use alternate routes," emergency officials said in a post on X.

In a Wednesday press conference, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that the estimated 280 arrests occurring Tuesday night at Columbia University and City College were being reviewed by his office.

"We will look carefully at each individual case on our docket and make decisions based on the facts and the law," Bragg said. "That will include a thorough review of body cam footage and interviews with witnesses."

Bragg said the cases included about 170 court summons, while the remaining cases were either desk appearance tickets or cases that are "making their way through the system."

Although negotiations with pro-Palestinian student protesters at Portland State University reportedly fell through, local NBC affiliate KGW reports that around 50 people left the building on their own.

University president Ann Cudd said that negotiators for the students indicated they'd leave the library by 1:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday. In return, Cudd promised to not suspend, expel or press criminal charges against the occupants — as well as agreed to meet with student leaders on May 17. However, this proposed compromise wasn't agreed upon.

"I fervently wish that the students in the library had signed on to our agreement, but, after their negotiators told us they had a deal, they apparently chose not to sign," Cudd said.

Other protesters — including nonstudents — are still at the library, she added.

Shiraz University, located in southern Iran, says it will offer scholarships to students from the United States and Europe who've been expelled due to protests over conflicts in the Middle East, according to CNN.

“Students and even professors who have been expelled or threatened with expulsion can continue their studies in Shiraz University,” Shiraz University President Mohammad Moreno said, per the news channel. “I think that other universities in Shiraz and Fars province are prepared to do the same too.”

Pro-Palestinian student demonstrators who set up a small encampment on Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus say they have been suspended.

The Fordham Observer posted a photo on X of a protester brandishing the notice of suspension through a window of the Lowenstein Building.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is demanding answers to what he called a "limited and delayed" response from UCLA's campus police after violence overnight.

The violence escalated after counterprotesters set up a camp near protesters. Videos circulating on X showed counterprotesters assaulting, using pepper spray and throwing objects at protesters, as well as tearing up their encampment.

Social media users questioned where UCLA's campus police were, as videos appeared to show, notably absent. UCLA had said on Tuesday evening that they had "significantly" increased their security presence, but KABC reported that violence lasted for hours without police intervention.

“As soon as it became clear that state assistance was needed to support a local response, our office immediately deployed CHP personnel to campus," Newsom's office said in a statement posted on X.

"The Governor's Office of Emergency Services has been coordinating law enforcement mutual aid requests statewide, including responding for assistance at UCLA throughout the night and early morning," his office added.

"The state has established a robust Law Enforcement Mutual Aid System to provide law enforcement assistance to college campuses when requested during incidents beyond the capacity of local and campus police."

During her briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked repeatedly why President Biden has yet to comment directly on the arrests and protests at Columbia University and other schools across the country. She said Biden was monitoring the situation, but she quickly pivoted, saying that over the years the president has spoken out strongly against antisemitism.

There could be another reason for Biden's silence, Peter Baker points out in the New York Times: He has never been big on protests. Biden was studying law at Syracuse University in 1968 when the antiwar protests erupted at Columbia and across the country, and he did not join them.

"Now, 56 years to the day after the police stormed Hamilton Hall to evict demonstrators in one of the most iconic moments of the 1960s protest movement, Biden has no more affinity for their modern-day successors rousted by officers from the same university building they had seized to voice outrage over Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip," Baker notes. "As the political far left calls him 'Genocide Joe' and Republicans blame him for the campus chaos, the president has sought to stay personally out of the fray as much as possible."

But Biden "cannot simply shrug off the uproar on American college campuses as he once could," Baker argues. "This time he is not just a disdainful bystander but one of the targets of the discontent, challenging him to navigate the treacherous waters of campus politics better than Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1968."

• Read more from Baker's piece in the Times on Yahoo News: A bystander to ’60s protests, Biden now becomes a target

California Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced the overnight violence between counterprotesters and protesters on UCLA's campus. Newsom called for people engaging in "illegal behavior" to be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution, according to a statement posted on X.

"I condemn the violence at UCLA last night. The law is clear: The right to free speech does not extend to inciting violence, vandalism, or lawlessness on campus. Those who engage in illegal behavior must be held accountable for their actions — including through criminal prosecution, suspension, or expulsion," the statement read.

Protesters are occupying the library at Portland State University, even after the school closed the campus for the day, according to the Washington Post. There have been protests for several days on campus, causing the shutdown.

University president Ann Cudd recorded a video message to the protesters inside the library, telling them that the school had asked the Portland Bureau of Police to help remove them from the building.

"We want you to come out of the library," Cudd said in the video, per the Post. "I'm asking you to please — especially the students — please, voluntarily leave the library."