US campus protests: arrests in Dallas and New York as officers move against demonstrators – live | US campus protests

If you’re just joining us now, here’s a summary of what else has happened in campus protests across the US today:

• Michael Drake, the president of the University of California system, has ordered an independent review of the UCLA administration’s planning, after a late-night attack on a pro-Palestinian student encampment resulted in at least 15 people being injured.

• Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, confirmed that 280 people on the Columbia University and Cuny campuses had been arrested on Tuesday. Bragg has not confirmed reports from city and police officials that “outside agitators” had infiltrated student-led protests.

• Cuny students with the university’s Gaza Solidarity encampment criticized New York police officers for their “brutal and spineless” arrests of protesters. “We will not be intimidated by these brutal and spineless tactics … We will not stop until these demands are met,” read a statement from students posted on social media.

• California governor Gavin Newsom condemned the violence at UCLA. Posting on X, he criticized the “limited and delayed” law enforcement response on Tuesday night, describing it as “unacceptable”.

• UCLA cancelled all classes on Wednesday after counter-demonstrators attacked pro-Palestine protesters overnight. “Due to the distress caused by the violence that took place on Royce Quad late last night and early this morning, all classes are cancelled today,” read a statement from the university.

• Minouche Shafik, the Columbia University president, sent an email following the use of New York police to lead mass arrests at Tuesday’s protests on campus. In the email sent Wednesday, Shafik said that NYPD had been used because “students and outside activists [were] breaking Hamilton Hall doors, mistreating our Public Safety officers and maintenance staff, and damaging property … ”.

• New York police said the wife of a man convicted of terrorism was not at protests on Columbia’s campus on Tuesday, walking back claims from city and police officials. NYPD deputy commissioner Rebecca Weiner said the woman, who has yet to be publicly identified, was not a part of any protests last night and that police “have no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing on her part”, the New York Daily News reported.

• At least one high school started their own encampment in solidarity with university students at Columbia and beyond, according to a flyer from students at Iowa City’s City high.

• Police tore down encampments at the University of Wisconsin, Madison early on Wednesday, in yet another crackdown on a peaceful student protest. Several protesters, mostly students, were detained by police.

• Law enforcement in New York and Texas also made arrests and shut down pro-Palestine encampments at Fordham University in Manhattan and the University of Texas at Dallas.

Emotional testimony from young people attacked last night at UCLA

The head of UCLA’s Muslim Student Association and members of the campus’s pro-Palestine encampment are holding a press conference right now, giving emotional descriptions of the violent assaults they faced last night, from being hit in the head and requiring stitches, to being bear-sprayed in the face. The university’s chancellor has publicly condemned “a group of instigators” for coming onto campus to deliberately attack a student encampment advocating for Palestinian rights.

The young people attacked described the counter-protesters attacking them as “pro-Israel protesters” or “Zionist supporters”. Some of them are displaying the injuries they received.

“I saw women as young as 18 or 19 being punched in the face by 25- or 30-year-old men,” Aiden Doyle said.

“It was a war zone on our campus,” another student said. “We were attacked by the Zionists.”

“My son who goes here was pepper-sprayed last night, not by the police, not by the school security forces, but by thugs,” a UCLA parent said.

Yusef, who declined to give his last name, described fearing for his life and texting his family group chat during what he described “the scariest moment of my life”.

He said he ended up going to the hospital for treatment for two serious head injuries that left his head covered in blood, but said that he felt comparatively lucky.

“I had the ability to go to a hospital last night. Currently in Gaza, there is zero fully functioning hospitals,” Yusef said. “My cousins who have passed away from this brutal genocide did not have the luxury to go to a hospital after the attack.”

Multiple speakers pushed back against media coverage that framed the violence last night as a fight between two groups of protesters.

“There was no brawl. There was only was group that was abused. There was not a fight … there was only one group that was attacking,” one speaker said, to applause and cheers from the crowd. “I was here till the break of day and I went back and saw the headlines. I was shocked and I felt that if this is how the media is going to treat us, what is going to happen as we move forward?”

Officers make arrests at pro-Palestinian protests in Dallas and New York