On Wednesday, Jewish students at Columbia University in New York having chained themselves to the university gates in protest against the detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. Meanwhile, at Harvard University in Massachusetts, students marched and demonstrated for an end to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and called for their university to divest from Israeli military investments.
HAPPENING NOW: Hundreds of Harvard University students rally against Trump, Israel’s war on Gaza, and the detainment of Mahmoud Khalil and other students speaking out against the genocide. The university has locked Harvard Yard’s gates in response. pic.twitter.com/2jtHsqypRu
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) April 1, 2025
Harvard students staged a die-in for 17 minutes to protest the 17-month-long Israeli genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/XJG96BUfzg
— Kuffiya (@Kuffiyateam) March 29, 2025
At Columbia University, students staged a sit-in demanding the release of their fellow student Mahmoud Khalil, who is being held by the Trump regime at an immigration detention center in Louisiana. Their protest came as a federal judge ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to move Khalil’s trial out of New Jersey to Louisiana.
After a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk, was abducted by plainclothes ICE agents last week, Harvard and other universities organized solidarity protests.
Harvard, according to the MassLive’ paper in Massachusetts, closed its main quad in anticipation of protests and is requiring students to stop at a guard station and present their student IDs to enter. Securitas security guards were then posted at several buildings, including Widener, Johnston, Meyers (Thayer), Sever and Lamont.The Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s daily student newspaper, reported on two campus protests that took place on Thursday.
Numerous colleges and universities witnessed demonstrations and sit-in protests against the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and the arrest of a number of students by U.S. officials due to their anti-genocide stances.
Protesters held up signs denouncing US support for the occupying state, demanding an immediate end to the war, and denouncing the suppression of dissenting voices supporting Palestinian rights on campus and at other universities, including Columbia University.
These demonstrations come in the context of a broader wave of student protests at other American universities, demanding an end to the war on the Gaza Strip.
Some universities have failed to protect their students from attacks by the right-wing Trump administration. Journalist Eman Naga wrote in the Michigan Daily that the University of Michigan “weakly buckled under the initial pressure of a New York Times anti-DEI article and allowed President Donald Trump’s regime to end the fight so many students helped lead in trying to make the University more inclusive. Receiving less outrage — and wrongly so — was the University’s email emphasizing that Immigration Customs and Enforcement can comfortably roam our campus. Their only solution was asking students to alert the Division of Public Safety and Security of ICE presence, knowing local law enforcement is a common collaborator with ICE.”
Bangladeshi student leader Umama Fatema, a key organiser of the July 2024 youth uprising, just refused a U.S. sponsored award in protest of its ties to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Her refusal mirrors a growing global movement: no honors from those who enable oppression.
Students and peace activists across the country are planning major protests on Saturday April 5 to challenge the Trump regime’s policies and forced deportations of individuals who have been accused of no crime except exercising their freedom of speech. Thousands of students across the US participated in encampments at their campuses between April and June 2024, calling for an end to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. People in Gaza shared messages of thanks to the students for taking a stand, in the midst of the ongoing daily brutality they were (and are) experiencing in Gaza.
