Our adventurous readers have been traveling all over the world in the previous couple of months, Exploring AntarcticaTake a day trip to Downton Abbey and in addition discover the wonders of Wyoming. Now these travel stories are shared together with some travel suggestions.

This week we hear from a bunch of friends from San Jose who visited British Columbia last summer. Read on for details and find more travel inspiration at www.mercurynews.com/tag/wish-you-were-here/.

Wish you were here

BRITISH COLUMBIA: A birthday trip took longtime San Jose friends Connie Skipitares, Suzanne Arnaud, birthday girl Maureen Lewis, Kathy Infantino and Shaye Ryall to Victoria in August.

“Victoria is an Anglophile’s dream,” says Connie. “Although this charming city is not on the European continent, it still offers a rich environment of British culture. Afternoon tea is served almost everywhere! At the long-established Empress Hotel, traditional English tea is served daily in the elegant dining room from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Save your money for this lavish experience – $100 per person.”

Other must-see highlights included “spectacular Butchart Gardensa 55-acre flower lover's paradise 30 minutes north; Hatley Castlea sprawling Tudor-style manor house and gardens; and downtown Victoria with lively pubs and quaint shops.”

TRAVEL TIPS: “The Hop-on hop-off double-decker bus tour is a must-do, a two-hour tour around the city that offers us a selection of the main attractions that we returned to on our own tour. In the summer, try to visit Butchart Gardens on a Saturday evening to not only enjoy the flowers at dusk, but also to enjoy an outdoor concert and a breathtaking fireworks display.”

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Editor of Columbia Law Reviewa prestigious journal published by students of the law faculty of the celebrated university, say the board of the publication called on them on 2 June 2024To Refraining from publishing a critical article about Israel.

After the scholars published the article online the next day, includes faculty members and alumni of Columbia Law Schoolhad the Law Review website shut down.

The board soon gave in and allowed the Website back online on June 6, including the article in query. But there was an announcement He accused the coed editors of not properly reviewing the article before publication.

The student editors have rejected the statements within the board's statement and say they’re “on strike’ – thereby evading a few of their scrutiny obligations – to protest against the panel’s attempts to suppress them.

This dispute has attracted far less attention than the campus protests at Columbia University and tons of of other schools expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and protesting the varsity's ties to Israel's military operations within the Gaza Strip within the spring of 2024.

But as a scholar of Academic freedom and freedom of expression in higher educationI consider that the controversy is price being attentive to. If, as the scholars claim, there are inappropriate interferences with the scientific independence of considered one of the most influential legal journals within the countryThere are few, if any, precedents for this incident.

Exchange of research leads to legal journals

Student-run law journals, which give a very important opportunity for legal scholars to share their research on legal topics with law professors, judges, lawyers, and other readers, typically have high degree of editorial independence.

If the scholars’ allegations are true, the board generally accepted standards of educational freedom in higher education that students consider critical. Academic freedom is a component of what makes colleges and universities places where latest views and knowledge will be exchanged and accepted ideas will be challenged.

The most Law faculties have not less than one journal with “Law Review” within the name. Some also produce other journals that give attention to specific legal topics, comparable to Training, Civil rights or International issues.

Law journals and other skilled journals are typically published by the law school, although they are frequently student-run, meaning that student editors select the articles to be published and are answerable for the editorial process.

Contributing to a legal journal is taken into account an honor and will be an awesome opportunity for law students in Completion of legal traineeships with judges and jobs at law firms or other employers.

Legal journals are a most significant solution to exchange research results on legal topics by authors comparable to law and other professors, lawyers, and judges. The importance of law journals to legal research signifies that student editors of law journals mustn’t be unduly pressured in deciding to simply accept or reject articles.

The structure of the Columbia Law Review is unusual: it operates as an independent non-profit, independent of the law facultyand is supervised by a board of directors.

Typically, law journals are a part of a law school.

However, like other law journals, Columbia's is run by students attending the university's law school. Also typical is that the articles, written in a proper and academic style, are aimed more at legal professionals than most of the people. In this particular article, there are examples of rarely used words comparable to “instantiation” and “diverse.”

Presentation of a brand new legal framework

Rabea Eghbariaha Palestinian human rights lawyer with a law degree from an Israeli university who’s enrolled in a doctoral program in law at Harvard Law School, wrote the Article on the centre of this dispute.

In it, he proposes a brand new legal framework to label Israel's expulsion and “mistreatment” of the Palestinian people as a criminal offense against humanity comparable to apartheid or genocide.

Harvard Law Review previously commissioned and published an analogous article Before the choice to not publish it.

Fear of backlash The publication of an article critical of Israel was the rationale for the delayed rejection, based on an announcement published in November 2023 by 25 student editors at Harvard University.

It isn’t unusual for law journals to publish articles containing potentially controversial claims. For example, the previous issue of the Columbia Law Review stated: contained an article In it, the writer argued that prisoners who were forced to work as a part of their sentence were treated like slaves.

Centrality of educational freedom

The unrest on campus related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas has raised questions on the proper of scholars to precise their personal views when They take part in campus protests.

Furthermore, this dispute raises questions on the educational freedom of student editors and their right to free expression.

The First amendment clearly protects the proper to free speech for college students attending public colleges and universities. But it applies only to those institutions.

Technically, they’re private institutions – like Columbia University and the associated nonprofit organization that manages the law journal’s funds, but up to now doesn’t try to interfere in decisions on articles – should not sure by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Nevertheless, most of them Freedom of expression and academic freedom as central elements of their mission.

Academic freedom relies on customs and practices designed to guard the proper of college members to independently pursue their teaching, research, and other skilled responsibilities without undue interference from their employers.

It isn’t entirely clear that Students benefit from the same academic freedom.

However, just about all colleges and universities accept that students must have the proper to precise their very own views and Access to all possible arguments.

The students who edit the Columbia Law Review likely have limited legal recourse to challenge the panel’s actions. Instead, as their Decision to strikeStudents will likely need to make use of strategies, along with legal motion, to display that the panel violated the principles of educational freedom.

The Board of Directors may additionally make its own additional statements in defense of its actions.

Overarching institutional commitments

The dispute over the Columbia Law Review will be seen as a part of ongoing tensions on campus throughout the country due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

One argument is that prejudice against Palestinians suspended institutional commitments to free expression and academic freedom. A counter view is that pro-Palestinian protests or other efforts, comparable to this text from a legal journal, which the Israeli government describes as “regime,” Are too often marked by anti-Semitism.

Be that as it might, it’s now clear that these tensions should not limited to campus protests. Ultimately, I consider, they might directly challenge institutional commitments to academic freedom and independence in scientific research.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A police officer involved in clearing protesters from a Columbia University administration constructing earlier this week fired his weapon contained in the hall, a spokesman for District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office confirmed Thursday.

No one was injured, in line with spokesman Doug Cohen. There were other officers within the immediate vicinity, but no students. He said Bragg's office is conducting a review.

He didn’t provide further details concerning the incident, which was first reported by The City news agency.

The New York Police Department didn’t immediately reply to The Associated Press' request for comment.

The shooting occurred as law enforcement officials stormed Hamilton Hall late Tuesday. Pro-Palestinian protesters were barricaded there for greater than 20 hours. Officers with zip ties and riot shields may very well be seen on video streaming through a second-story window. Police had said there was no significant resistance from protesters inside.

More than 100 protesters were arrested through the crackdown. They are amongst greater than 2,000 people arrested during pro-Palestinian protests at universities across the United States in recent weeks, in line with an Associated Press tally on Thursday.

Columbia's demonstrators had taken over Hamilton Hall early Tuesday, increasing their presence on campus from a tent encampment that had existed there since April 17. The camp was one among the primary on the school campus.

Despite greater than 100 arrests the subsequent day and the evacuation of tents, protesters defied threats of suspension and returned to the camp. They then escalated their demonstration by occupying Hamilton Hall, an administrative constructing also occupied in 1968 by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War.

Outside of Columbia's New York campus, demonstrations and arrests occurred in almost every a part of the country. Over the past 24 hours, they attracted most attention on the University of California, Los Angeles, where there have been chaotic scenes early Thursday as officers in riot gear tackled a crowd of protesters.

Hundreds of protesters at UCLA defied orders to depart, some forming human chains, while police fired flash bangs to disperse the gang.

At least 200 people were arrested, said Sgt. Alejandro Rubio of the California Highway Patrol, citing data from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

According to the university, one other 300 people voluntarily left the camp through the hours-long standoff. Some left the camp with their hands over their heads, demonstrating peaceful give up. Others ran away as officers armed with batons advanced into the hordes of greater than 1,000 people.

Later Thursday morning, staff removed the barricades and dismantled the protesters' fortified camp. Bulldozers scooped up trash bags and tents. Royce Hall was covered in graffiti.
Encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or firms they are saying support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide, forming a student movement unlike anything this century.

The demonstrations began April 17 at Columbia University as students demanded an end to the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed greater than 34,000 Palestinians within the Gaza Strip, in line with the health ministry there. Israel launched its offensive within the Gaza Strip after Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on October 7.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in an announcement Thursday that the camp had change into “a focus of serious violence and major disruption.” He said days of clashes between protesters and counter-protesters were endangering people on campus, students couldn't get to class, buildings needed to be closed and classes had been canceled.

“The past week has been one of the most painful periods our UCLA community has ever experienced,” he said. “It has destroyed our sense of belonging and trust and will certainly leave a scar on campus.”

Early Thursday, tons of of law enforcement officials in riot gear streamed onto the UCLA campus. They wore face shields and body armor and held out their batons to distance themselves from protesters wearing helmets and gas masks and chanting: “You want peace.” We want justice.”

For hours, officials warned over loudspeakers that arrests could be made if the gang didn’t disperse. Demonstrators and police pushed and scuffled. Police helicopters were in motion and the sound of lightning struck the air. During the arrests, the police took helmets and protective goggles from the demonstrators.

Police systematically tore apart the camp's barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fencing and trash containers, then tore down canopies and tents.

The law enforcement presence and continued warnings contrasted with the scene Tuesday night when counter-protesters attacked the pro-Palestinian camp. The campus administration and the police didn’t intervene for hours or call for backup. No one was arrested, but at the very least 15 protesters were injured.

The delayed response drew criticism from political leaders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and officials promised an independent review.

Ariel Dardashti, a UCLA graduate studying global studies and sociology, said no student should feel unsafe on campus.

“It shouldn’t get to the point where students are being arrested,” Dardashti said on campus Thursday.

Dardashti said he could understand the trauma of the Palestinians.

“When my father fled Iran, he prayed that his children would not face anti-Semitism,” Dardashti said. “We are afraid of having to flee again, like our parents did.”

Iranian state television broadcast live images of the police operation at UCLA, as did the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera in Qatar. Live images from Los Angeles were also broadcast on Israeli television channels.

Israel has branded the protests anti-Semitic, while Israel's critics say it’s using those accusations to silence the opposition. Although some demonstrators were caught on camera making anti-Semitic statements or violent threats, organizers of the protests – a few of whom were Jewish – described it as a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest against the war.

President Joe Biden on Thursday defended students' right to peacefully protest but condemned the unrest in recent days.

California Republican leaders criticized university administrators for failing to guard Jewish students and for allowing protests to escalate into “lawlessness and violence.” They called for the firing of executives at UCLA and California State Polytechnic University in Humboldt and pushed for a proposal that might cut university administration salaries.

“We have a whole lot of people at these universities making six-figure salaries, and they stood by,” Republican Assembly Chairman James Gallagher told reporters.

Meanwhile, across the U.S., school protest camps were cleared by police – resulting in more arrests – or voluntarily closed.

An Illinois college professor said he suffered several broken ribs and a broken hand during a pro-Palestinian protest Saturday at Washington University in St. Louis.

In a post on the social platform X, Sandra Tamari said her husband needed surgery on his hand and had nine broken ribs.

Tamari said in an announcement Thursday that it was “a small price to pay for Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.” Campus police referred inquiries to the university's communications department, which didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Elsewhere, University of Minnesota officials agreed with protesters to not disrupt commencements. Similar agreements have been reached at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Brown University in Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, a bunch of professors at Columbia University on Thursday condemned school administrators for calling on police to remove protesters in what the group called a “horrible police attack on our students.” Officers stormed right into a constructing on Tuesday, broke up an illustration that had shut down the varsity and took greater than 100 people into custody.

Watson reported from San Diego, Keller reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico and Thompson reported from Buffalo, New York. Associated Press journalists across the country contributed to this report, including Ethan Swope, Krysta Fauria, Leslie Ambriz, John Antczak, Christopher L. Keller, Lisa Baumann, Stefanie Dazio, Jae C. Hong, Colleen Long, Karen Matthews, Sarah Brumfield and Carolyn Thompson, Philip Marcelo, Steve Karnowski and Eugene Johnson.

Columbia University has turn out to be the epicenter of student protests over the war in Gaza. In the next Q&A, Stefan Bradley, a history professor at Amherst College and creator of the 2009 book, weighs in:Harlem vs. Columbia University: The Power of Black Students within the Late Sixties“addresses the similarities and differences between the protests of the Sixties and today.

How are the protests today different from those in 1968?

There are similarities in the scholars' resistance to war, racism and prejudice.

A key difference is social media, which has contributed significantly to students' ability to mobilize. News of assorted actions and protests spreads quickly.

Another difference is the violence or the specter of it. Initial demonstrations at Columbia University in April 1968 began with threats of violence between radical students who desired to end the university's ties to war research in the course of the Vietnam War and end a project to construct a university gymnasium, and predominantly white athletes who desired to advance the project . The gym was designed in order that predominantly black and brown residents of Harlem could enter through one door and Columbia affiliates could enter through one other door. Columbia affiliates also had greater access to different parts of the gym, leading residents to dub the situation “Gym Crow.”

Tension was within the air, given the institution's history of expansion and the uprisings surrounding the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. just weeks earlier. As the demonstration moved to the gymnasium grounds, there have been clashes with police within the park before they returned to campus to take over Hamilton Hall, the identical constructing where dozens of Columbia student activists marched on the night of April 30 at this 12 months's Protesters against Gaza were arrested in 2024.

By April 30, students were less disruptive than up to now. The Camp on the South Lawn essential functions of the university will not be affected.

But after students took over Hamilton Hall, the maths modified. By breaking into the constructing and barricading themselves inside, the campus activists gave the administration much more reason to call on the police to remove them.

How come?

In 1968, officials called city police to forcibly remove and arrest students who had subsequently taken over 4 other buildings. Things quickly turned violent. Police stormed into buildings and around campus to make arrests. In a constructing called Math Hall, activists gathered, including Tom Hayden – creator of Port Huron Statement, a left-wing manifesto that called on students to take motion against racism, imperialism and poverty – fought back. Police beat observers and activists alike with batons.

With longstanding criticism of the university of their minds and King's death of their hearts, Harlem residents were able to support protesting students.

Black Power leaders equivalent to Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap ​​Brown told the press that if Columbia didn’t negotiate with the black students, the university would need to take care of Hamilton's black students “Brothers on the Street” from Harlem. The threat of a coalition with Harlem's neighbors contributed to activists' success in stopping construction of a non-public university gymnasium in nearby Morningside Park and the varsity's ties to the Institute for Defense Analyzes, a consortium of flagship and elite colleges. to finish institutions that conducted state-funded defense research in the course of the Cold War.

The threat of violence was highlighted by the recent constructing seizure and arrests in Hamilton. The 2024 protest is starting to resemble the 1968 protest, as students turn out to be uncomfortable with their university's decision-making and administration feels compelled to regain control of the campus. The differences have gotten smaller and the similarities are increasing.

What concerning the use of symbolism?

In 1968 and today, students used symbolism to convey a message.

Fifty-six years ago, protesters also took over Hamilton Hall, named after Alexander Hamilton, renamed it Malcolm X University and hung pictures of Stokely Carmichael.

Today protesters renamed it Hind's Hall – in honor of a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza – and flew a Palestinian flag from a window in Hamilton.

What is the legacy of the 1968 protest?

The great legacy is that students are the moral compass of those well-resourced elite institutions – even after they behave disruptively. They are willing to take motion on campus when nobody else will. If left to the trustees, administration, faculty, and staff, the university would probably be quiet and civil while waiting for the marketplace of ideas and countless committees to determine what to do about humanitarian crises in real time.

Young people have all the time been impatient of their demands for justice. In 1968, the difficulty was Columbia's construction of a gymnasium in West Harlem and the university's relationship with the IDA; within the Eighties it was financial interests of the university in apartheid South Africa; and within the 2010s, the varsity's investments in private prison corporations. The 1968 rebellion taught later generations not to just accept indiscriminate killing and injustice.

Another legacy is that while using police to interrupt up demonstrations may end unrest within the short term, it may well ultimately result in the radicalization of moderate students who watch their friends being arrested or injured.

What makes a protest successful?

Of course, students want every want to be fulfilled, but that is usually unlikely. A greater sign of success is disruption of the establishment and the eye they pay to the issues. In this respect, the protests were a hit.

The conflict in a spot like Columbia attracts attention due to its location within the media capital of the world. When administrators reply to issues raised by students by specializing in policies and procedures, it may well create the impression that the problems will not be essential.

56 years ago, campus activists inspired students abroad, “Two, three, lots of Columbias!“Administrators may want to remain apolitical, but campus protesters want to know where their tuition goes and have a say in how it is spent.” It is a remarkable achievement in overcoming the conflict between the principal sources of funding – the scholars who pay the tutoring and the varsity’s most significant donors – to be highlighted.

How unprecedented are the coed arrests?

There is priority for arrests of scholars on and off campus. The NYPD violently arrested greater than 700 students in April 1968 and dozens more in May.

When students within the twentieth century rebelled against the concept the university should act of their parents' placeUniversity officials contacted law enforcement within the hope that students would comply.

Arrests were made Fisk Institute 1925 for protests against strict student rules, including people who limited participation in civil rights movements; There was that Berkeley Free Speech Movementas students demanded the suitable to distribute civil rights literature on campus.

In 1970 there have been also shootings of scholars by the police or the National Guard Jackson State And Kent Statea predominantly white university.

In 2016 there have been clashes between police and students protesting tuition increases in California. There were no fatal shootings, but non-lethal weapons equivalent to pepper spray were used. Inviting police onto campus introduces a component of giving power to those that will not be all for the academic well-being of scholars.

Protest demands

Protest across the country

NEW YORK (AP) — Clashes broke out between protesters and police on the University of Texas on Monday, resulting in dozens of arrests, and Columbia University began issuing suspensions as colleges across the U.S. implored pro-Palestinian protesters to depart their encampments to vacate before the opening ceremonies approached.

Protesters from coast to coast are arguing over the war between Israel and Hamas and the rising death toll, and the variety of arrests at universities across the country is nearing 1,000 at the tip of the ultimate days of classes. The outcry is forcing colleges to reckon with their financial ties to Israel and their support of free speech.

Protests have even spread to Europe, with French police expelling dozens of scholars from Sorbonne University after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the essential courtyard. In Canada, student protest camps have sprung up on the University of Ottawa, McGill University in Montreal and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, The Canadian Press reported.

At the University of Texas at Austin, a lawyer said not less than 40 protesters were arrested Monday, a few of them by officers in riot gear who surrounded about 100 seated demonstrators and carried them away one after the other, screaming. Another group of protesters trapped police and a van stuffed with detainees between buildings, making a mass of pushing and shoving bodies and prompting officers to make use of pepper spray and flash guns to clear the gang.

The confrontation led to an escalation on the 50,000-student campus within the state capital. On social media, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott reposted a video of the arrival of state troops and said, “No encampments will be allowed.” Just last week, tons of of law enforcement officials descended on demonstrators outside the university and arrested greater than 50 people.

The Texas protest and others grew out of early demonstrations in Colombia that proceed to at the present time. On Monday, Columbia University student activists left a camp of about 120 tents on the college's Manhattan campus despite a 2 p.m. deadline. Instead, tons of of protesters marched across the courtyard, clapping, shouting and weaving around piles of makeshift flooring and green carpet intended for graduation ceremonies set to start next week.

A handful of counter-protesters waved Israeli flags and one held an indication that read, “Where are the anti-Hamas chants?”

The university didn’t call the police to disperse the protesters. But three hours after the deadline, school spokesman Ben Chang said Columbia had begun suspending students. He didn’t say what number of students were involved. He also didn’t say how the suspensions can be carried out or whether suspended students can be expelled from campus.

Chang said that while the university values ​​students' right to freedom of expression, the camp is a “noisy distraction” that interferes with teaching and preparation for final exams. The protests also made some Jewish students very uncomfortable, he said.

Protest organizers said they weren’t aware of any suspensions as of Monday evening.

The notice sent to protesters earlier Monday said they might finish the semester in good standing in the event that they left on time and signed a form agreeing to comply with university policies through June 2025. If not, the letter said, they’d be suspended pending further investigation.

College classes are winding down for the semester and campuses are preparing for graduation ceremonies, giving schools extra incentive to filter out encampments. The University of Southern California has canceled its essential graduation ceremony.

But students lagged behind at other top universities, and stalemate continued at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale and others.

Protesters in Yale arrange a brand new encampment with dozens of tents on Sunday, nearly every week after police arrested nearly 50 and cleared the same one nearby. They were informed by a Yale official that they’d face disciplinary motion, as much as and including suspension and possible arrest, in the event that they continued.

Yale said in an announcement Monday that while it supports peaceful protests and freedom of expression, it doesn’t tolerate policy violations just like the encampment. School officials said the protest is happening near residential colleges where many students are studying for final exams, and that groups have to be granted permission to carry events and construct structures on campus.

In a rare move, Northwestern University said it had reached an agreement with students and school who represent nearly all of protesters on its Chicago-area campus. It allows peaceful demonstrations through the tip of spring classes on June 1, requires the removal of all but one tents to supply assistance, and limits the demonstration area to students, faculty and staff access only unless the university approves otherwise.

At Brown University in Rhode Island, school president Christina H. Paxton offered protest leaders the chance to satisfy with officials to debate their case for divesting from Israel-affiliated businesses in exchange for ending a camp.

In the letter to student protesters in Columbia, school officials noted that exams were starting and graduation was approaching.

“We urge you to disband the camp so that we do not deprive your fellow students, their families and friends of this momentous event,” the letter said.

The demonstrations have prompted Columbia to carry distant classes. In an email to students, the college said bringing police back “at this time” can be counterproductive. The university said it will offer another venue for the protests after exams and graduation.

Colombia's handling of the protests has led to federal complaints.

Meanwhile, a rights group representing pro-Palestinian students is looking on the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to research Columbia's compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 over the way in which they were treated.

A university spokesman declined to comment on the complaints.

The fate of the arrested students has grow to be a central theme of the protests, with students and a growing number of school demanding amnesty for the demonstrators. At issue is whether or not the suspensions and legal records will follow students throughout their adult lives.

Protesters on other campuses, meanwhile, said they’d stand firm. Jacob Ginn, a second-year sociology student on the University of North Carolina, said he protested on the camp for 4 days, including negotiations with administration on Friday.

“We are prepared for anything and will remain here until the university meets our demands, and we will remain steadfast and strong in the face of any brutality and repression they attempt to attack us with,” Ginn said, referring to a possible police raid of the camp.

Columbia University canceled in-person classes on Monday and latest demonstrations broke out on other campuses across the U.S. as tensions proceed to rise over Israel's war in Gaza.

Protesters gathered throughout the weekend on the campus of the Ivy League school in New York City, where police last week arrested greater than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters who had arrange an encampment.

Since those arrests, pro-Palestinian protesters have arrange camps on other campuses across the country, including on the University of Michigan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University, where several dozen protesters were arrested Monday morning after officials said they’d surrendered abandoned despite warnings.

The developments got here hours before the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover on Monday evening.

Columbia President Minouche Shafik said in a message to the college community Monday that she was “deeply saddened” by what happened on campus.

“To defuse the resentment and give us all an opportunity to consider next steps, I am announcing that all classes on Monday will be held virtually,” Shafik wrote. She said faculty and staff should work remotely when possible and students who don’t live to tell the tale campus should stay away.

Protests have erupted on many university campuses since Hamas' deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, through which militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. In response, Israel has killed greater than 34,000 Palestinians within the Gaza Strip, in keeping with the local health ministry. The Health Ministry doesn’t distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but says not less than two-thirds of the dead were children and girls.

The demonstrations on US campuses have tested the road between free speech and inclusivity. They have also stoked tensions, with some Muslim students and their allies calling on schools to sentence Israel's attack on Gaza, and a few Jewish students saying they not feel supported or secure on campus as anti-Semitic sentiment runs high.

Prahlad Iyengar, an MIT graduate student studying electrical engineering, was amongst about two dozen students who arrange a camp with greater than a dozen tents on campus Sunday evening to call for a ceasefire and protest what they called “MIT’s complicity in what happened” refers to genocide in Gaza.”

“MIT has not even called for a ceasefire, and that is a demand we certainly have,” he said.

Iyengar also said the college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, issued confusing rules for protests.

“We are here to show that we reserve the right to protest. It is an essential part of life on a college campus,” he said, adding that they’ve received support from each graduate and undergraduate students.

On Sunday, Elie Buechler, rabbi of the Orthodox Union's Jewish Learning Initiative at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to almost 300 Jewish students recommending they go home until it was safer for them on campus.

Nicholas Baum, a 19-year-old Jewish college freshman who lives at a Jewish theological seminary two blocks from Columbia's Morningside Heights campus, said protesters over the weekend were “calling on Hamas to blow away Tel Aviv and Israel.” He said a number of the protesters who shouted anti-Semitic slurs weren’t students.

“Jews are afraid of Columbia. It's that simple. There has been so much denigration of Zionism, and that has extended to the denigration of Judaism as well,” he said.

The protest camp emerged in Columbia on Wednesday, the identical day Shafik faced intense criticism at a congressional hearing from Republicans who said she had not done enough to combat anti-Semitism. Two other Ivy League presidents resigned months ago after widely criticized testimony before the identical committee.

In her statement on Monday, Shafik said the Middle East conflict was terrible and she or he understood that many were in deep moral distress.

“But we cannot allow one group to dictate terms and attempt to disrupt key milestones like graduation to advance their point of view,” Shafik wrote.

In the approaching days, a working group of deans, school administrators and teachers will try to search out an answer to the university crisis, noted Shafik, who didn’t say when in-person classes will resume.

Several Columbia College and Barnard College students said they were suspended for his or her participation in last week's protests, including Barnard student Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar.

At Yale, cops arrested about 45 protesters and charged them with trespassing, said Officer Christian Bruckhart, a New Haven police spokesman. All were released on a promise to look in court later, he said.

Protesters arrange tents in Beinecke Plaza on Friday and demonstrated over the weekend, calling on Yale to stop all investments in defense firms that do business with Israel.

Nadine Cubeisy, a Yale student and one in every of the organizers of the protest, said the protesters were calling for Yale to divest from defense contractors since it was troubling that “this university that I'm going to attend, that I'm contributing to, and that's mine.” Friends donate money for the usage of that cash to finance violence.”

“Constructing structures, ignoring orders from university officials, remaining on campus areas beyond permitted hours, and other actions that violate university policies and guidelines pose safety risks and hinder the work of our university,” he said.

School officials said they spoke with protesters over several hours and gave them until the tip of the weekend to go away Beinecke Plaza. They said they warned protesters again Monday morning, telling them they might face arrest and disciplinary motion, including suspension, before police moved in.

A big group of protesters gathered at Yale after Monday's arrests and blocked a street near campus, said Bruckhart, the police spokesman. There were no reports of violence or injuries.

Last week, the University of Southern California took the weird step of canceling a planned commencement speech by its 2024 valedictorian, who had publicly supported the Palestinians. The university cited security concerns in a choice that was praised by some pro-Israel groups but criticized by free speech advocates.

Associated Press writers Steve LeBlanc and Susan Haigh contributed to this report.