The University of California announced it is cancelling its “main stage” commencement due to safety concerns as Gaza protests continue on its Los Angeles campus. The announcement came on the same day that police detained two Emory University professors protesting with students.
Footage taken at Emory University in Georgia shows police using tasers on restrained students and shooting pepperballs at demonstrators. Photos also showed officers binding professors supporting the student protests.
The videos came a day after police used force to try to disperse protests at both the University of Austin in Texas and the University of California in Los Angeles.
On Wednesday, Police clashed with protesters in New York, at the University of Austin in Texas – where there were arrests – and in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California.
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, also visited Columbia University and called on university President Minouche Shafik to quit if the protests are not brought under control. He was met with a chorus of boos.
Some Jewish students have faced antisemitic harassment leading to safety concerns on campus.
More than 100 people have been arrested at Columbia alone in connection to the protest encampments which are asking the school to divest financial ties to the war in Gaza.