Caps, gowns, and crackdowns
As colleges enter commencement season, the final weeks of the academic year have become a flashpoint for pro-Palestinian protests. Over the past several days, 15 students have been arrested at encampments and demonstrations at Rutgers, Swarthmore and UCLA in scenes that underscore the mounting tensions between student activists, university administrators and federal authorities under pressure to respond. Go deeper ► New York City police shared an internal report with federal immigration officials about a Palestinian woman arrested at a protest outside Columbia — and the Trump administration is now using it to try to deport her, court records show. (AP)
“Under the thinly veiled guise of security, rights are being denied and due process eliminated,” writes Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia student who spent 16 nights in jail before a judge ordered his release last week, halting the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. (New York Times)
Sen. Jon Ossoff, the Jewish Democrat from Georgia, criticized the Trump administration for using antisemitism to justify attacks on civil liberties. (Jewish Insider)
At Dartmouth College, about 65 people held a candlelight vigil at the site of last year’s mass arrests during a pro-Palestinian protest. This time, the college negotiated with organizers, and no one was arrested. (Valley News)
A graduate student at Tulane filed a lawsuit against the school and a former campus police officer, claiming the officer falsely described his actions during an arrest at a pro-Palestinian protest last year. (Nola)
The president of the University of Michigan is leaving to become the president of the University of Florida. His three-year Michigan tenure was marked by accusations that the school was doing too little to combat both antisemitism and Islamophobia. (Detroit Free Press)
The University of Haifa suspended an anti-war student group made up of Israelis and Palestinians, for holding a campus event without a permit. (JTA) | 