Dozens have been arrested on California campuses after students were detained in Texas as war protests continue in Gaza

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Police peacefully arrested student protesters at the University of Southern California on Wednesday, hours after police at a Texas university aggressively arrested dozens in recent clashes between law enforcement and protesters against the Israel-Hamas war on campuses across the country .

While tensions between police and protesters at USC rose earlier in the day, by evening a few dozen protesters standing in a circle with their arms folded were arrested one by one without incident.

Police officers surrounded the dwindling group, which sat despite an earlier warning to disperse or be arrested. Behind the police line, hundreds of onlookers watched helicopters whir overhead. The school closed the campus.

While universities struggling to defuse the unrest quickly turned to law enforcement, the arrests in California stood in sharp contrast to the chaos that reigned at the University of Texas at Austin just hours earlier.

Hundreds of local and state police — including some on horseback and carrying batons — pushed against the protesters, some even rushing into the streets. According to the state Department of Public Safety, officers arrested 34 people at the behest of the university and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott.

A photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin was in the crowd when an officer pulled him backwards to the ground, video shows. The broadcaster confirmed that the photographer was arrested. A longtime Texas journalist was knocked down in the chaos and could be seen bleeding before police helped him to the emergency room.

Dane Urquhart, a third-year Texas student, called the police presence and arrests an “overreaction,” adding that the protest “would have remained peaceful” had officers not shown up in large numbers.

“Because of all the arrests, I think there will be a lot more (demonstrations),” Urquhart said.

After hours of trying to control the crowd, police left the school and about 300 protesters returned to sit on the lawn and sing under the school’s iconic bell tower.

In a statement Wednesday evening, university President Jay Hartzell said, “Our rules are important and will be enforced. “Our university will not be occupied.”

North of USC, students at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, were barricaded in a building for a third day, and the school closed campus for the weekend and conducted classes virtually.

Harvard University in Massachusetts tried to get ahead of the protests this week by restricting access to Harvard Yard and requiring permits for tents and tables. But that didn’t stop protesters from setting up a 14-tent camp Wednesday after a rally against the university’s suspension of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Students protesting the Israel-Hamas war are demanding that schools cut their financial ties to Israel and divest from companies that enabled the months-long conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have turned into anti-Semitism and made them afraid to enter campus, in part leading to greater intervention by universities.

At New York University this week, 133 protesters were arrested, according to police, while more than 40 protesters were arrested at a camp at Yale University on Monday.

Columbia University averted another confrontation between students and police on Wednesday. University President Minouche Shafik had set a midnight deadline on Tuesday to reach an agreement to clear a camp, but the school extended negotiations and said it would continue talks with protesters for another 48 hours.

During a visit to campus on Wednesday, Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson called on Shafik to resign “if she is unable to bring order to this chaos.”

“If this is not contained quickly and these threats and intimidation are not stopped, the time is right for the National Guard,” he said.

On Wednesday evening, a Columbia spokesman said rumors that the university had threatened to deploy the National Guard were unfounded. “Our focus is on restoring order, and if we can get there through dialogue, we will,” said Ben Chang, Colombia’s vice president of communications.

Columbia graduate student Omer Lubaton Granot, who posted pictures of Israeli hostages near the camp, said he wanted to remind people that more than 100 hostages are still being held by Hamas.

“I see all the people behind me who are standing up for human rights,” he said. “I don’t think they say a word about the fact that people their age, kidnapped from their homes or from a music festival in Israel, are being held by a terrorist organization.”

Harvard law student Tala Alfoqaha, a Palestinian, said she and other protesters are demanding more transparency from the university.

“I hope that the Harvard administration listens to the demands their students have been calling for all year, namely divestment, disclosure and the dropping of all charges against students,” she said.

Police attempted to clear the Columbia camp for the first time last week when they arrested more than 100 protesters. The move backfired, serving as inspiration for other students across the country to set up similar encampments and motivating Columbia protesters to regroup.

On Wednesday, about 60 tents remained at the Columbia camp, where things appeared quiet. Security around campus remained tight, with ID required and police erecting metal barricades.

Columbia said it had agreed with protest representatives that only students would remain at the encampment and that they would make it friendly and ban discriminatory or harassing language.

A few dozen students gathered on the University of Minnesota campus a day after nine protesters were arrested as police broke up an encampment outside the library. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose daughter was among the protesters arrested in Columbia last week, attended a protest rally later in the day.

A group of more than 80 professors and assistant professors signed a letter Wednesday calling on the university’s president and other administrators to drop all charges and allow future camps without what they described as police retaliation.

They wrote that they were “appalled that the government would allow such a clear violation of our students’ right to speak freely against the genocide and ongoing occupation of Palestine.”

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Perry reported from Meredith, New Hampshire. Associated Press journalists from various locations contributed to this report, including Joey Cappelletti, Will Weissert, Larry Lage, Steve LeBlanc, Dave Collins, Jim Salter, Haven Daley, Jesse Bedayn, John Antczak, Julie Walker and Joseph Krauss.