The battle broke out a day after protests and multi-day encampments in opposition to the conflict swept the nation’s faculty campuses, leading to arrests on no less than 4 establishments. College students urge their colleges to cease funding Israeli firms that assist or profit from Israel’s battle with Hamas and are demanding a cease-fire.
The demonstrators additionally demand that America cease offering army assist to Israel’s conflict effort.
Vice chancellor for strategic communications at UCLA, Mary Osako, launched a press release saying, “We’re heartbroken concerning the violence that broke out. UCLA has a protracted historical past of being a spot of peaceable protest.”
Whereas campus police broke up small altercations, the Los Angeles Occasions described the protests as “giant and noisy however largely peaceable,” regardless of the Each day Bruin faculty newspaper reporting that one among its reporters was struck within the face with a banner. The College of Southern California, situated throughout city, has shuttered its campus because of the 93 arrests made throughout Wednesday’s protests. Within the midst of the chaos, the varsity known as off its main commencement ceremony.
Since a demonstration at Columbia University in New York City ten days ago, hundreds of protestors have been taken into custody or arrested at over a dozen campuses, ranging from New York to California. Due to antisemitic shouts that make Jewish students feel uncomfortable on campuses, infiltration of the encampments by individuals with no relation to the colleges, and regulations banning the encampments, several school administrations have asked the protestors to leave.
Leaders of the student protests maintain that the gatherings have been nonviolent.