Students stand strong: College campus protests shake US establishment to the core

The demonstrations began to snowball after New York police disbanded a protest encampment at Columbia University on April 18 and arrested more than 100 people.

The protests have spread to more than 100 colleges and universities across the United States with students establishing tent encampments calling on their institutions to meet their demands.

But police have launched heavy-handed clampdowns; making some 3,000 arrests, including faculty members.

Violation of freedom 

In the latest wave of protests, police with batons approached arm-in-arm protesters early Friday at the University of California, Santa Cruz, according to the Associated Press.

Police also broke up a pro-Palestinian encampment at a Detroit university on Thursday and arrested a dozen demonstrators.

Police in riot gear removed fencing and broke down tents erected a week ago on green space near the undergraduate library at Wayne State University, according to ABC News.

On Tuesday, workers of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), walked off the job to protest the university’s response to the Gaza demonstrations at the campus.

According to CBS News, researchers, graduate student teaching assistants, and other academic workers with the United Auto Workers (UAW) 4811 union joined the strike.

UAW 4811 represents 48,000 academic workers across all 10 UC campuses.

The union first announced a potential strike after an attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA on April 30.

It said a group of counter-protesters were “hitting protesters including members of UAW 4811 with sticks, spraying them with bear spray, and pelting them with bottles and fireworks”.

Caroline Luce, a historian who chairs the communications committee of the University Council-American Federation of Teachers at UCLA, described what happened on April 30 as “the worst incident of violence in our campus’ history.”

“Instead of protecting our rights to free speech and assembly, Chancellor (Gene) Block’s administration has actively hindered them, rendering our students and our colleagues vulnerable to assault and arrest,” Luce added.

The University of California has called some of the union’s demands “politically motivated,” and says the strike is not legal.

Demands of protesters 

Demonstrators at US universities have called for an end to Israel’s brutal onslaught on Gaza. They have denounced the complicity of their educational institutions in Israel’s human rights abuses. The protesters have demanded that universities cut ties with companies involved in weapons manufacturing and other industries supporting the regime’s war.

On Wednesday, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, the Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, hailed US college students for protesting Israel’s war of genocide on Gaza.

“Dear university students in the United States of America, you are standing on the right side of history,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a message.

The Iranian Leader’s comments raised eyebrows in the United States.

Condoning violence 

US officials have condoned police violence against anti-war protesters, accusing them of antisemitism.

But the protesters, many of whom Jews, have rejected such accusations.

Student protests in the US have expanded to Canada, Austria, Europe and some other countries across the globe.

In some European countries, such as France, Germany and Britain police have used violence against peaceful protests.

In addition to college campus protests, people in American cities have held rallies over the past months to vent their anger at the genocidal war in Gaza and Washington’s military and political support for Tel Aviv.

To appease domestic opposition to the Gaza war, US officials have made critical remarks about Israel over its brutal war on Gaza.

But Washington has rejected calls to use its powerful leverage at the UN Security Council to bring a halt to Israel’s killing machine.

Abetting genocide 

Washington has also refused to attach conditions to its military support for Israel.

Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show the US has long been the biggest supplier of arms to Israel.

Last month, President Joe Biden signed a foreign aid bill that included $15 billion in Israeli military aid.

This is in addition to the $3.8 billion of military aid that Israel receives from the US every year.

Israel has been committing cold-blooded massacres in Gaza since October 7.

On Sunday, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a tent camp in a neighborhood in the city of Rafah killing dozens of displaced Palestinians, many of them women and children. Some of the victims burned alive in their tents. The carnage sparked global backlash but the US downplayed it and rejected calls to take practical actions to stop the onslaught. US media revealed that American weapons were used in the attack.

Nonetheless, unwavering support for Israel is costing the US dear.

The Tehran Times revealed in April former veteran US politician Dennis Ross, who held important positions in the administrations of Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, had acknowledged a generational divide in the US over Washington’s pro-Israel strategy.

According to a recording of a private meeting exclusively obtained by the Tehran Times, Ross admitted a growing dissidence movement in US educational institutions.

“There is a kind of dissidence now, among a lot of the younger Jewish students and who were attracted to the progressives before October 7th, created a kind of real dissidence for them, and I’ve seen a kind of, there is a question in their minds now who they were previously associated with,” Ross said in the recording.

Polls show a growing number of people in the United States are expressing their opposition to the Gaza war and their country’s pro-Israel policy.

Presently, the spillover of US college campus protests to Canada, Australia, Europe and beyond has brought disgrace on American politicians and their protégé Israel.