LOS ANGELES — Police peacefully arrested student protesters at the University of Southern California on Wednesday, hours after police at a Texas university aggressively detained dozens in the latest clashes between law enforcement and those protesting the Israel-Hamas war on campuses nationwide.
While tensions rose between police and protesters at USC earlier in the day, in the evening a few dozen demonstrators standing in a circle with locked arms were detained one by one without incident.
Police officers encircled the dwindling group, which sat in defiance of an earlier warning to disperse or be arrested. Beyond the police line, hundreds of onlookers watched as helicopters buzzed overhead. The school closed the campus.
Last week, USC canceled the valedictorian’s speech out of safety concerns considering her pro-Palestinian views, sparking backlash. The student, Asna Tabassum, is a first-generation South Asian-American Muslim who majored in biomedical engineering and minored in resistance to genocide, according to a statement published through the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
A rally by pro-Palestinian demonstrators turned chaotic at USC’s Alumni Park, as police confronted protesters who attempted to set up an encampment on campus.
Dozens of students and others have issued a list of demands, including the university’s divestment, similar to demands from students on other campuses, according to sister station KABC.
The arrests at USC arrived hours after police at the University of Texas at Austin aggressively took 34 demonstrators. It was the latest clash between law enforcement and those protesting the Israel-Hamas war on campuses nationwide.
The actions across the U.S. came after Columbia University averted another confrontation between students and police earlier in the day.
DEVELOPING: More details will be added to this report as they become available.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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