Activists and students participate in an encampment protest at the University Yard at George Washington University on Thursday.

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Activists and students participate in an encampment protest at the University Yard at George Washington University on Thursday.

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Pro-Palestinian encampments and demonstrations have cropped up at dozens of college campuses across the U.S., many turning chaotic as police arrived to disperse crowds and take protesters into custody.

Still, student activists nationwide appear determined to show their support for people in Gaza and push their universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel or who otherwise profit from its war with Hamas.

Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack killed 1,200 Israelis and resulted in another roughly 240 being taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities, while Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s military response has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children.

This latest wave of campus protests was sparked last week at Columbia University, where over 100 people were arrested after the administration called in New York City police to clear out a pro-Palestinian encampment. Undeterred protesters then built a larger encampment on an adjacent quad, prompting the school to switch to hybrid learning for the remainder of the semester.

Columbia officials and students have been in negotiations over clearing the encampment, with talks set to continue past their Friday morning deadline.

The administration originally set a deadline of midnight Tuesday for protesters to dismantle the setup, but repeatedly extended it due to what it described as constructive dialogue.

Columbia officials said Thursday that protesters had agreed to take certain steps, including removing a significant number of tents, limiting the protests to Columbia students only, complying with fire department requirements and prohibiting discriminatory or harassing language.

Officials announced just before midnight that “the talks have shown progress and are continuing as planned.”

“For several days, a small group of faculty, administrators, and University Senators have been in dialogue with student organizers to discuss the basis for dismantling the encampment, dispersing, and following University policies going forward,” the statement read. “We have our demands; they have theirs. A formal process is underway and continues.”

University President Minouche Shafik — who is facing criticism from faculty, donors and lawmakers for her handling of the protests — has said that if discussions are not successful, the school will have to consider “alternative options for clearing the West Lawn and restoring calm to campus so that students can complete the term and graduate.”

“I am deeply sensitive to the fact that graduating seniors spent their first year attending Columbia remotely,” she said. “We all very much want these students to celebrate their well-deserved graduation with family and friends.”

Also on Thursday, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles announced it would cancel its main commencement ceremony, citing the need for additional security measures. It had already canceled its valedictorian’s speech because of safety concerns stemming from the backlash she received over her social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war.

At Columbia, student protesters still have their tents set up and are in negotiations with university officials.

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At Columbia, student protesters still have their tents set up and are in negotiations with university officials.

Nikita Payusov/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty

Meanwhile, at George Washington University in D.C., a second day of protests is underway Friday despite the university’s 7 p.m. deadline for clearing the encampments.

The GW Hatchet reports that police were in the area as about 40 protesters remained in their tents overnight, but no arrests were made. Protests resumed shortly after 7 a.m., prompting the university to close and restrict access to University Yard.

More than a dozen demonstrators left the encampment, with some rejoining the chants from the opposite side of the barricades.

GW Law School Dean Dayna Bowen said in a video message on Thursday that the school is working to move law students’ final exams, which are currently underway, to more quiet and secure locations because of the protests.

“Now let me emphasize, there is nothing threatening your safety that’s going on at this moment,” she said. “But yet you are our primary concern. To protect your safety and the integrity of our academic program we are relocating student final exams.”

Thousands of people sit silently while fellow demonstrators pray during a rally at George Washington University on Thursday night.

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Thousands of people sit silently while fellow demonstrators pray during a rally at George Washington University on Thursday night.

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More than 500 protesters have been arrested

Protesters were arrested at schools including The Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota and Indiana University on Thursday, joining the fast-growing list of demonstrators who have been detained by police nationwide.

That same day, two graduate students were arrested at Princeton University for setting up encampments in violation of school policy, while more than two dozen people were arrested at Emory University in Atlanta, where participants were also protesting a police training facility nicknamed “Cop City.”

Police officers arrest a protester as pro-Palestinian students demonstrate at Emory University on Thursday.

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Police officers arrest a protester as pro-Palestinian students demonstrate at Emory University on Thursday.

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At Emory University in Atlanta, protesters — including students from other Atlanta universities and area activists — clashed with state, city and university law enforcement on campus. Videos on social media show officers using tear gas, tasers and handcuffs to detain protesters, including faculty members.

Cheryl Elliott, Emory’s vice president for public safety, said in a statement Thursday that the university called in Atlanta police and George State Patrol officers to disperse the crowd after protesters ignored multiple warnings for trespassing. During subsequent confrontations, she said, law enforcement “released chemical irritants into the ground” after protesters threw objects at them.

She said 28 people had been arrested, including 20 members of the Emory community, “some of whom have been released.”

“We are working with responding agencies to expedite the release of any Emory community members who remain in custody,” Elliott added.

More than 100 people were arrested at Emerson College in Boston early Thursday morning after police tore down an encampment there. The school subsequently added Boylston Place Alley, where the encampment was located, to its list of campus locations where demonstrations are not allowed.

At the University of Southern California, 93 people were arrested Wednesday for trespassing, a misdemeanor offense. One arrest was made for assault with a deadly weapon, though the department did not say what the weapon was. No injuries were reported, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

At The University of Texas at Austin, almost 60 people were arrested Wednesday for loitering, but charges have been dropped for most of them.

Still, the following day, faculty members gathered at a rally and called for the school’s president, Jay Hartzell, to resign after he praised the school and law enforcement for exercising restraint against the protestors, according to NPR member station KUT.

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The yen fell to a new 34-year low on Friday after the Bank of Japan stuck to its dovish tone, holding interest rates near zero despite rising pressure on the central bank to tighten its policy and prop up the ailing currency.

The Japanese currency fell to ¥156.71 against the dollar after the BoJ unanimously agreed to continue guiding its overnight interest rate within a range of about zero to 0.1 per cent.

In March, the central bank ended its negative interest rate policy, raising borrowing costs for the first time since 2007.

In the wake of its historic shift away from ultra-loose monetary policy, governor Kazuo Ueda indicated he would like to move gradually to raise rates.

But his position has been complicated by the yen’s depreciation and signals that the US Federal Reserve will keep interest rates high to tame inflation.

Investors had not expected the BoJ to change its policy this week, with the focus on whether Ueda would strike a hawkish tone regarding future rate rises to slow the yen’s decline.

Instead, Ueda said at a news conference on Friday that the central bank’s board members judged there was “no major impact” from the weaker yen on underlying inflation for now.

“Currency rates is not a target of monetary policy to directly control,” he said. “But currency volatility could be an important factor in impacting the economy and prices. If the impact on underlying inflation becomes too big to ignore, it may be a reason to adjust monetary policy.”

The yen held steady at about ¥155.55 a dollar in morning trading but weakened sharply within 10 minutes of the BoJ’s announcement as traders resumed bets that the US-Japan rate differential would continue to apply downward pressure on the Japanese currency.

The Nikkei 225 stock index briefly rose more than 1 per cent after the announcement. It closed up 0.8 per cent on Friday.

The BoJ forecast “core-core” inflation, a closely watched measure that strips out volatile food and energy prices, would remain near its 2 per cent target for the next three years. Ueda added that the central bank would raise rates or adjust the degree of its easing measures if prices rose in line with its outlook.

In a single-page statement, the BoJ also noted that it would continue to purchase Japanese government bonds in line with its March decision but dropped a previous footnote on how much it would buy each month.

“There is no intention by the BoJ to stop the yen’s decline, at least looking at its statement and its outlook report,” said UBS economist Masamichi Adachi. “The finance ministry will have to act [to stem the yen weakness].

“It would have been more effective if both the government and the BoJ faced the same direction,” he added.

The BoJ has long struggled to maintain price rises at sustainable levels to keep the economy out of deflation. While domestic consumption remains weak, the falling yen is expected to fuel inflation in the months ahead by increasing the cost of imported goods.

Investors expect the BoJ to raise rates in July at the earliest if the bank confirms increases in service inflation and real wages, which would help boost consumption. Following the dovish tone on Friday, however, Adachi said he does not expect the next rate rise until October.

“Markets remain on high alert for any indication of whether the yen’s current weakness will be interpreted as a lasting inflationary signal,” said Naomi Fink, global strategist at Nikko Asset Management.

“The BoJ however is likelier to find any knock-on impact from yen weakness upon inflation as more concerning than short-term currency moves.”

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pressed an attorney for former President Trump on a line of questioning by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in the former president’s presidential immunity case at the Supreme Court Thursday.

“What are the circumstances where ordering a military coup is an official act of the presidency?” Collins said, referring to a back-and-forth between Kagan and Trump lawyer D. John Sauer in which she questioned him on presidential immunity in the case of a president ordering the military to stage a coup.

“When you’re talking about official acts, you don’t look to intent, you don’t look to purpose, you look to their underlying character,” Scharf responded. “So if that were — if that sort of situation were to unfold using the official powers of the president, you could see there being an aspect of officialness to that.”

The two went back and forth, and Collins later remarked that Sharf was making “a pretty brazen argument, that military coups could potentially be official acts.”

Sharf retorted that the argument is not meant to justify such things, but to define the scope of immunity presidents have been acting in office.

“Just because a military coup or any of these sort of parade of horribles could constitute an official act doesn’t mean that they’re right, doesn’t mean that they would be allowed under a constitutional system and doesn’t mean that we’re in any way shape or form justifying that,” he said. “What we’re talking about here, though, is the scope of immunity that presidents need to be able to rely on to discharge their core article to responsibilities as president.”

When asked about if a president ordering “the military to stage a coup” is an “official act” by Kagan on Thursday as the Supreme Court held a hearing on Trump’s claims of immunity, Sauer responded that “it could well be.”

On the same day of the Supreme Court hearing, the former president was in court in New York for his hush money case, which began last week. The case marks the first criminal trial of a former American president. He has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in relation to reimbursements to his attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, who paid an adult film actor $130,000 prior to the 2016 election to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump, which he denies.