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As student protesters get arrested, they risk being banned from campus too
A man holds up a Palestinian flag as activists and students surround piled barricades at an encampment at at George Washington University early Monday.
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
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A man holds up a Palestinian flag as activists and students surround piled barricades at an encampment at at George Washington University early Monday.
Kent Nishimura/Getty Images
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators continue to turn out at schools across the country despite the risk of detention and suspension, with nearly 300 more protesters were arrested over the weekend.
On Sunday, pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israeli protesters clashed at the University of California, Los Angeles, leading to what university leaders described as “physical altercations” and prompting them to increase security measures on campus.
Twelve protesters — including nine students — were arrested at the University of Mary Washington after refusing to vacate an encampment on its Fredericksburg, Va., campus. University President Troy Paino said in a statement that health and safety concerns had emerged on Saturday after protestors invited the off-campus public to join the encampment.
Elsewhere in the state, an unknown number of protesters were arrested at Virginia Tech University in the early hours of Monday morning, according to the Washington Post. NPR has reached out to the university for more information.
The school warned of “heavy police activity around the Graduate Life Center” in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) starting just after 10 p.m. ET, and announced around 3:30 a.m. that the incident “had stabilized.” Social media footage shows protesters chanting at police as they lead people into multiple white vans.
Protests at George Washington University in D.C. are stretching into their fifth day on Monday — the last day of class for the semester — after a tense weekend, culminating in a clash between protesters and police.
Students first set up an encampment on University Yard on Thursday and later launched a second one on nearby H Street after the school put up barricades to restrict access.
Shortly before midnight on Sunday, protesters knocked down the barricades — piling them in a stack in the middle of the lawn — and flooded the lawn, with people remaining there overnight in some 85 tents, the GW Hatchet reports.
GW officials said in a statement early Monday that a group of “approximately 200 protesters from across [D.C., Maryland and Virginia], including professional organizers, activists, and university students, have joined the unauthorized encampment on our campus.”
“This is an egregious violation of community trust and goes far beyond the boundaries of free expression and the right to protest,” they added. “The university will use every avenue available to ensure those involved are held accountable for their actions.”
Schools are alternately threatening and disavowing disciplinary action
Students arrested at Emerson College last week won’t face disciplinary action from the school, its president announced.
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Students arrested at Emerson College last week won’t face disciplinary action from the school, its president announced.
Joseph Prezioso /AFP via Getty Images
One question on the minds of many is what, if any, disciplinary action student protesters might face from their schools, especially with finals and graduation fast approaching.
Some universities have suspended — or threatened to suspend — students who have been arrested for protesting, while others have said they will not.
Students have been suspended for protesting at George Washington University, Princeton University, Washington University in St. Louis, Pomona College and Vanderbilt University, according to reports.
Barnard College officials announced Friday that it will allow most of the 53 students who were arrested and suspended after protesting at Columbia University to return to campus. The New York Times reports that suspended students who reached agreements with the college have their access to residence halls, dining facilities and classrooms restored, while others are still working to reach agreements.
On Sunday, Jay Bernhardt, the president of Emerson College in Boston — where more than 100 protesters were arrested at an encampment early Thursday morning — said the college will not bring disciplinary charges against protesters, and will “encourage the district attorney not to pursue charges related to encampment violations.”
He said it is also taking steps to support students who were arrested, including posting bail for them and providing housing support to those who are required to stay local for court appearances after the closing of their dorms.
“The College has done its best to keep all community members safe every day during these challenging times, but we recognize that we must do more,” he added.
In Texas, the Travis County district attorney has dropped misdemeanor trespassing charges against all 57 people arrested during a protest at UT-Austin last week, after a judge found insufficient evidence to proceed.
Elsewhere, some schools are threatening disciplinary action for students who don’t comply with directives to leave encampments that they say violate their policies.
Officials at the University of Florida, where students began protesting on Wednesday, said Friday that demonstrators could face suspension and a three-year ban from campus if they violate specific protest rules, reports member station WUFT.
They are prohibited from using bullhorns or speakers to amplify their voices, possessing weapons and protesting inside campus buildings — but also face more vague prohibitions like “no disruption,” according to a list circulated late Thursday.
“They also included ‘no sleeping’ on a campus where students often doze in the sun between classes,” per WUFT.
At Cal Poly Humboldt, officials closed campus to the public on Saturday, several days after student protesters first occupied two academic and administrative buildings. They had previously given protesters until 5 p.m. on Friday to leave with a guarantee of no immediate arrest — but said they would still face consequences.
“This does not, however, eliminate University conduct-related sanctions or legal implications,” officials said in a release. “In addition, voluntarily departing in this way will be considered as a mitigating factor in University conduct processes and may reduce the severity of sanctions imposed.”
The campus will remain closed until May 10, with work and classes remote through the end of the semester. Officials say they are planning for “various scenarios” for commencement.
At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, president Sally Kornbluth said in a Sunday message to students that their growing encampment violates policies around registering for campus demonstrations and creates a “potential magnet for disruptive outside protestors.”
She said rules have been broken, and those who break them — “including rules around the time, place and manner of protest” — will face disciplinary action.
“We are open to further discussion about the means of ending the encampment,” she added. “But this particular form of expression needs to end soon.”
Some faculty are calling for amnesty
Students and faculty at some universities are calling on their administrations not to discipline protesters. Arrested protesters face uncertainty about not only their legal records but the status of campus housing, financial aid and graduation eligibility.
At the University of Pennsylvania, officials say a campus statue was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and are calling on demonstrators — from Penn and other area schools — to disband.
A group of Penn faculty and Philadelphia-area elected officials signed a letter last week urging university leaders to “respect students’ rights to engage in nonviolent protest” by refraining from calling in law enforcement to make arrests and from filing disciplinary and criminal charges against peaceful protesters at the encampment.
“Protesters nationwide face police violence and severe discipline, and the safety and wellbeing of Philadelphia students exercising their rights are among our foremost concerns,” they wrote.
Nearly 300 faculty members at Yale University, where 48 protesters were arrested last week, signed a letter condemning what they called “the criminalization of Yale students engaged in recent acts of peaceful protest.” They demanded that the university take no further disciplinary action and called on authorities to drop all charges against them.
They said the protesters arrested face Class A misdemeanors under Connecticut law, which carry possible penalties of up to 364 days in jail.
“Threatening students with sanctions of this kind is unconscionable and should not be the means by which Yale responds to peaceful protest,” they added.
In a further sign of discontent, faculty members at universities in California, Georgia and Texas have either initiated or passed largely symbolic votes of no confidence in their leadership, according to the Associated Press.
Trump was listed as a passenger on eight flights on Epstein’s private jet, according to emailpublished at 11:58 GMT
Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist
One of the Epstein documents, external is an email saying that “Donald Trump traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)”.
The email was sent on 7 January 2020 and is part of an email chain which includes the subject heading ‘RE: Epstein flight records’.
The sender and recipient are redacted but at the bottom of the email is a signature for an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York – with the name redacted.
The email states: “He is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including at least four flights on which Maxwell was also present. He is listed as having traveled with, among others and at various times, Marla Maples, his daughter Tiffany, and his son Eric”.
“On one flight in 1993, he and Epstein are the only two listed passengers; on another, the only three passengers are Epstein, Trump, and then-20-year-old” – with the person’s name redacted.
It goes on: “On two other flights, two of the passengers, respectively, were women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case”.
In 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison, external for crimes including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts and sex trafficking of a minor.
Trump was a friend of Epstein’s for years, but the president has said they fell out in about 2004, years before Epstein was first arrested. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein and his presence on the flights does not indicate wrongdoing.
We have contacted the White House for a response to this particular file.
Dr. Tyler Jorgensen sets “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on a record player at Dell Seton Medical Center in Austin Texas. He uses vinyl records as a form of music therapy for palliative care patients.
Lorianne Willett/KUT News
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AUSTIN, TEXAS — Lying in her bed at Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas at Austin, 64-year-old Pamela Mansfield sways her feet to the rhythm of George Jones’ “She Thinks I Still Care.” Mansfield is still recovering much of her mobility after a recent neck surgery, but she finds a way to move to the music floating from a record player that was wheeled into her room.
“Seems to be the worst part is the stiffness in my ankles and the no feeling in the hands,” she says. “But music makes everything better.”
The record player is courtesy of the ATX-VINyL program, a project dreamed up by Dr. Tyler Jorgensen to bring music to the bedside of patients dealing with difficult diagnoses and treatments. He collaborates with a team of volunteers who wheel the player on a cart to patients’ rooms, along with a selection of records in their favorite genres.
“I think of this record player as a time machine,” he said. “You know, something starts spinning — an old, familiar song on a record player — and now you’re back at home, you’re out of the hospital, you’re with your family, you’re with your loved ones.”
Daniela Vargas, a volunteer for the ATX-VINyL program, wheels a record player to the hospital room of a palliative care patient in Austin, Texas.
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The healing power of Country music… and Thin Lizzy
Mansfield wanted to hear country music: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones. That genre reminds her of listening to records with her parents, who helped form her taste in music. Almost as soon as the first record spins, she starts cracking jokes.
“I have great taste in music. Men, on the other hand … ehhh. I think my picker’s broken,” she says.
Other patients ask for jazz, R&B or holiday records.
The man who gave Jorgensen the idea for ATX-VINyL loved classic rock. That was around three years ago, when Jorgensen, a long-time emergency medicine physician, began a fellowship in palliative care — a specialty aimed at improving quality of life for people with serious conditions, including terminal illnesses.
Shortly after he began the fellowship, he says he struggled to connect with a particular patient.
“I couldn’t draw this man out, and I felt like he was really struggling and suffering,” Jorgensen said.
He had the idea to try playing the patient some music.
He went with “The Boys Are Back in Town,” by the 1970s Irish rock group Thin Lizzy, and saw an immediate change in the patient.
“He was telling me old stories about his life. He was getting more honest and vulnerable about the health challenges he was facing,” Jorgensen said. “And it just struck me that all this time I’ve been practicing medicine, there’s such a powerful tool that is almost universal to the human experience, which is music, and I’ve never tapped into it.”
Dr. Tyler Jorgensen plays vinyl records as a form of music therapy for palliative care patients in Austin, Texas. Willie Nelson’s albums are a perennial hit.
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Creating new memories
Jorgensen realized records could lift the spirits of patients dealing with heavy circumstances in hospital spaces that are often aesthetically bare. And he thought vinyl would offer a more personal touch than streaming a digital track through a smartphone or speaker.
“There’s just something inherently warm about the friction of a record — the pops, the scratches,” he said. “It sort of resonates through the wooden record player, and it just feels different.”
Since then, he has built up a collection of 60 records and counting at the hospital. The most-requested album, by a landslide, is Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours from 1977. Willie is also popular, along with Etta James and John Denver. And around the holidays, the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas gets a lot of spins.
These days, it’s often a volunteer who rolls the record player from room to room after consulting nursing staff about patients and family members who are struggling and could use a visit.
Daniela Vargas, the UT Austin pre-med undergraduate who heads up the volunteer cohort, became passionate about music therapy years ago when she and her sister began playing violin for isolated patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she sees similar benefits when she curates a collection of records for a patient today.
“We are usually not in the room for the entire time, so it’s a more intimate experience for the patient or family, but being able to interact with the patient in the beginning and at the end can be really transformative,” Vargas said.
Often, the palliative care patients visited by ATX-VINyL are near the end of life.
Jorgensen feels that the record player provides an interruption of the heaviness those patients and their families are experiencing. Suddenly, it’s possible to create a new, positive shared experience at a profoundly difficult time.
“Now you’re sort of looking at it together and thinking, ‘What are we going to do with this thing? Let’s play something for Mom, let’s play something for Dad.’” he said. “And you are creating a new, positive, shared experience in the setting of something that can otherwise be very sad, very heavy.”
Other patients, like Pamela Mansfield, are working painstakingly toward recovery.
She has had six neck surgeries since April, when she had a serious fall. But on the day she listened to the George Jones album, she had a small victory to celebrate: She stood up for three minutes, a record since her most recent surgery.
With the record spinning, she couldn’t help but think about the victories she’s still pursuing.
“It’s motivating,” she said. “Me and my broom could dance really well to some of this stuff.”
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