Pro-Palestine Protests Continue Nationwide: Eight Arrested at UT Austin, Campus Threatened; NYU and Yale Also See Massive Arrests

PROTESTERS PRO-PALESTINE REASSEMBLE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN CAMPUS FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS WEEK; EIGHT INDIVIDUALS ARE ARRESTED AFTER FAILING TO COMPLY WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT ORDERS. The University of Texas at Austin Police Department (UTPD) issued a dispersal order as protesters gathered on the South Mall, with support from the Department of Public Safety (DPS), who arrived around 1:30 p.m. Earlier in April, the university received online threats regarding today’s protest by an unidentified group organizing it. UTPD reported that after ignoring repeated warnings and removing tents on South Lawn, protesters assaulted Dean of Students staff attempting to confiscate them; this resulted in several arrests and a dismantled encampment, with baseball-sized rocks discovered within the camping area. The majority of protestors were not affiliated with UT Austin. Since October 2018, at least fourteen pro-Palestinian free speech events have taken place on campus without major incidents; four occurred in April alone. In a statement released by the university after Wednesday’s protests that resulted in over fifty arrests (including those of FOX7 Austin photographers), UT Austin affirmed its commitment to supporting freedom of expression and assembly while enforcing institutional rules, emphasizing that charges against arrested protestors had been dropped on Thursday. This protest is one among several happening nationwide; at Columbia University in New York City, protesters were asked by university officials to vacate their encampment tents by 2 p.m., following President Minouche Shafik’s statement that the institution would not divest from Israel. At NYU, police arrested one hundred thirty protestors on Monday evening for disorderly conduct charges; four of them were non-students. In Connecticut, forty-eight individuals (four being non-Yale students) were apprehended by authorities at Yale University after refusing to vacate an encampment situated in the campus’s center plaza. Protests also took place at other institutions like New York City Mayor Eric Adams reported that police officers had been hit with bottles and objects during some of this week’s events. Moreover, officials at The University Of Georgia confirmed several protesters were arrested by law enforcement personnel alongside state troopers on Monday afternoon in Athens, the university town where UGA is located.