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President Joe Biden has denounced the violence associated with pro-Palestinian demonstrations on elite campuses across the US, saying that while peaceful protests are protected speech, lawlessness will not be tolerated.
In his first public comments since police stormed university encampments set up by protesters from New York to Los Angeles, Biden warned demonstrators that “acts of chaos” should not be permitted and that he supported efforts by law enforcement to restore order.
“We’re a civil society and order must prevail,” Biden said from the White House. “Violent protest is not protected; peaceful protest is. It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest, it’s against the law.”
The scenes of chaos spreading across US campuses have highlighted how the war in the Middle East is dividing Democratic voters in an election year. Bernie Sanders, the progressive senator from Vermont, told CNN on Thursday: “This may be Biden’s Vietnam.”
Biden’s remarks came after the University of California, Los Angeles became the latest campus to see police action to break up a student encampment. UCLA had become the scene of violent clashes when a pro-Israel counterdemonstration attempted to dismantle the encampment on Tuesday night.
In the early morning hours on Thursday, Los Angeles police officers in riot gear removed tents and obstacles and detained protesters, leading them away with zip ties around their wrists, following disruption that led the university to cancel classes. The officers used “flash-bang” devices to disorient people in the crowds, local media reported.
The police raid at UCLA followed similar moves at Columbia University in New York, the University of Texas in Austin, the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. More than 1,600 people have been arrested at 30 colleges across the US since April 18, according to a tally by the Associated Press.
Biden has come under criticism from congressional Republicans for not being more outspoken against the demonstrations, which have forced several universities to cancel graduation ceremonies and move classes online.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, praised Los Angeles and New York police for their actions at UCLA and Columbia, and blamed “the radical left” for the ongoing disruptions on campuses.
“This is a movement from the left, not from the right. The right is not your problem,” Trump said. “These are radical left lunatics. And they’ve got to be stopped.”
At the same time, many Democrats and academics have expressed alarm at the heavy-handed approach taken by the police; most of the campus protests have been peaceful, even if several have violated campus rules over camping out on university grounds.
Eric Adams, the New York mayor, had blamed “outside agitators” for the mayhem. On Thursday, Columbia said 13 of the 44 people arrested at Hamilton Hall, a campus building whose seizure by protesters prompted the police raid, were unaffiliated with the university. Two were Columbia employees while the rest were undergraduates or graduate students.
Columbia faculty separately called for a vote of no confidence in Minouche Shafik, the university’s president, condemning the school leadership’s decision to call in police without consulting its own senate.
The Columbia University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors said recent decisions had “irrevocably undermined our trust” in the administration and were “the culmination of shocking failures of decision-making and judgment over the past seven months”.
In brief responses to questions from reporters, Biden said he did not advocate sending in the National Guard to break up demonstrations; National Guard troops are controlled by state governors, but can be nationalised in times of crisis. In addition, Biden said the protests had not led him to reconsider his policies towards the Israel-Hamas war.
The president made clear, however, that he believed the protests had gone too far, preventing students from attending classes and causing destruction on several campuses.
“Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation — none of this is a peaceful protest,” Biden said. “Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others so students can finish the semester and their college education.”
Groups of students around the country have been demanding in many cases that their universities divest their funds from Israel-linked companies, but the demonstrations have also sparked incidents of antisemitism.
Rutgers University in New Jersey postponed exams that had been due to take place on Thursday morning “due to anticipated escalation of protest activities and out of an abundance of caution for the safety of our students”.
The clashes at UCLA came after two weeks of controversy at the nearby University of Southern California, where administrators cancelled a graduation speech by the valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, a Muslim woman, citing security concerns.
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