On April 17, 2024, students at Columbia University began a sit-in protesting the United States’ involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict and Columbia’s financial support for the Israeli military. Hundreds of students sat in the center of campus, hoping to force Columbia’s endowment office to divest from companies within their endowment that are associated with Israel. However, University President Minouche Shafik called in the New York Police Department and mass arrested students involved in the protests. On just the second day of encampments, law enforcement arrested over 100 students, and for the next two weeks, protesting students had several violent encounters with law enforcement [1]. 

Outrage over the treatment of Columbia’s protesters sparked numerous Palestinian solidarity encampments on university campuses across the country. Campuses erupted in pro-Israel and pro-Palestine demonstrations, leading to violent engagements with police. This wave of protests led to over 3,000 arrests at colleges across the nation and significantly changed the political landscape in these schools [2]. While the end of the school year and summer break limited students’ ability to congregate and protest, these factors did not deter students’ support for Palestinian civilians. However, college administrations took drastic measures during the summer to prevent further mass protests. As a new school year began in the fall, Palestinian protests and political activism on college campuses changed dramatically. The combination of more restrictive protest policies from administrations and the frustrations of student groups has led to a tense atmosphere at many academic institutions. 

Over the summer, new policies were announced in an attempt to better control student demonstrations and prevent the violence and public outrage administrations dealt with in the spring. Protests on college campuses disrupt campus atmospheres and can bring negative media attention when demonstrations turn violent. To deter such unwanted attention and disruptions, school administrations at several universities have enacted more stringent protest policies on their respective campuses. UCLA, for example, passed the new Time, Place, and Manner Regulations, which limited public demonstration areas and also required groups to request permission for demonstrations. UCLA did not include Dickson Plaza, the location of encampments in the spring, in the list of places where public demonstrations can be held on campus [3]. Moreover, in an analysis of 44 collegiate institutions, The Chronicle found that 41 limited encampments or camping to some extent. 34 of those campuses restricted the times and places in which students could protest. The University of Wisconsin at Madison forbade protest activities “within 25 feet of entrances to university-owned or university-controlled buildings and facilities” [4]. School administrators seemingly designed these regulations to prevent mass protest encampments and other similar demonstrations that could disrupt campus operations.

Nevertheless, these new policies were unable to completely prevent large-scale protests at UCLA. On October 21, 2024, graduate students launched an encampment in Dickson Plaza. While organizers clarified with the Daily Bruin that the protest followed Time, Place, and Manner policies, the University of California Police Department (UCPD) and other law enforcement agencies surrounded and dissolved the encampment. In the aftermath of the encampment, UCPD detained one individual for failing to adhere to the dispersal order [5]. Protests are continuing on most college campuses, with similar fervor to those of the spring. On October 7, 2024, for example, student organizations at UCLA, both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, launched demonstrations to remind communities to continue to spread awareness of the casualties of the ongoing conflict. Pro-Palestinian groups protested Israel’s responses to Hamas’s attack, which have led to an estimated 41,000 Palestinian deaths [6]. Meanwhile, pro-Israeli demonstrators placed over 1,200 Israeli flags on the lawn of Kerckhoff Hall at UCLA to commemorate the lives lost in Hamas’s attack on Israel [7].

While protests have continued, they have greatly diminished in frequency. While over 100 schools saw encampments in the spring of 2024, there were significantly fewer large encampments and arrests during the new school year [8]. Aly Moosa, a student at Yale University, told The Hill, “[the wave of protests in the spring] was a deliberate and reactionary approach to showcase widespread solidarity amongst colleges, amongst initiatives, amongst organizations… I think the last few months are reeling from the intensity of that and trying to hold on to those relationships to build more of a long-lasting and less of a reactionary approach to organizing.” However, while the frequency of Palestinian solidarity protests has decreased, the intensity of demonstrations has not. The protests that do happen now are seen as a “go big or go home” for student organizations. Matt Kovac, a student at UC Berkeley, told The Washington Post that “Students now think it will take tougher actions to bring about change, and they are no longer willing to practice ‘respectability politics’” [9]. As a result of more stringent protest policies on college campuses, students feel unable to express their grievances about their universities’ relationship with the Israeli military.

The implementation of these new school policies is in stark contrast to the ongoing protests. These policies, instead of ameliorating existing tensions, have only strengthened animosity from student groups toward the universities they attend. They have only made situations on campus more tense, as pro-Palestinian demonstrators now organize not only for the divestment of their schools from Israel but also against the new restrictions placed upon them. The condemnation of protestors by university administrators likewise heightened existing tensions. Schools condemning students’ actions in the spring did not help ease the situation, and especially during election season, students did not plan on being quieter. Younger voters are a large target for both political campaigns, and protesters are using their voices to show candidates that the American response to this conflict is a key voter issue to them. Throughout history, college campuses have remained at the epicenter of progressive social movements, from the free speech movement to anti-apartheid demonstrations and opposition to the Vietnam War. Although they have faced opposition, student protesters continue to stand up for the issues they are passionate about. 

Testimonies on college campuses demonstrate just how uneasy campuses feel in the wake of mass violence last spring. Layth Handoush, a UCLA student, told the New York Times that the political landscape at UCLA remains tense. “It [is] a very tense atmosphere that is feigned to look normal as if it was like pre-Oct. 7…I would say the general student vibe is like, this lack of hope. There are just kind of feelings of, like, sadness” [10]. Reinhold Martin, an architectural historian at Columbia, described Columbia as a “horror film.” College students, their families, and faculty members feel a sense of apprehension at school over the future of these tensions. As school policies become increasingly unsuccessful at stopping protests, they feel it is only a matter of time until tensions reach a fever pitch and eventually boil over. 

In efforts to prevent mass protests and violence as they saw in the spring, college administrations have only worsened relations with student activist groups by creating harsher protest policies that have proven ineffective at limiting protests on their campuses. Instead, these regulations have only made students more incensed and more motivated to demonstrate on behalf of their respective causes. College campuses are more tense than ever, as students and faculty are caught between the crosshairs of protestors and administrators. To diffuse this tension, university administrations must begin to meaningfully engage with students and reach genuine compromise on possible avenues of demonstrations, rather than unilaterally creating policies that restrict free speech rather than guide it. Campuses must work hand in hand with community organizers to create more accessible spaces for protesting that prioritize safe and free expression. Until then, higher education institutions will continue to be at the forefront of protests over American involvement in this conflict.