Universities tighten security and rules after devastating protests in spring

Good morning. It is Thursday August 29. I’m Jaweed Kaleem, an education reporter at The Times. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

Universities tighten security and rules after devastating protests in spring

As colleges reopen, administrators are doubling down on campus rules and student codes of conduct: There will be zero tolerance for encampments and activism that violate university policies. Some are going even further. New ID checks, gates, and campus security officers are being added to keep tents, outsiders, and illegal occupations of buildings at bay.

Some students, whether activists who campaigned for divestment from universities in Israel or not, are not happy about it.

“It’s overdone,” Lawrence Sung, a senior studying international relations and global business at USC, told me about changes on his campus. Sung said University Park is starting to look more like “a fortress” after closing its gates to the public. Students, staff and faculty now enter through express lanes with IDs, while guests must register in advance.

Tall, black fences also close off parts of Alumni Park, the heart of campus and the site of the spring season. pro-palestinian campsStudents are only allowed to enter the park, where they usually rest under shady trees, through the designated entrances and exits.

Most universities issue edicts

The changes aren’t just happening at USC, where police arrested 93 people in April, about half of them students, as officers cleared a camp just weeks before a heavily secured graduation ceremony that included fences, bag checks and metal detectors.

Administrators at the University of California (10 campuses) and California State University (23 campuses) say they will strictly enforce camping codes of conduct, which have been inconsistently enforced in the past.

UC and CSU will face a test on Thursday: Students at UC Berkeley plan to protest outside Sproul Hall, the site of 1960s civil rights rallies that pro-Palestinian activists used as an encampment in the spring. Will the students pitch tents? And if they do, how will the university respond? Similar questions will arise at San Francisco State University, where a protest is also planned.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is UCLA, where classes begin in mid-September. In the spring, 231 people were arrested across multiple camps. In a clash that made international headlines, vigilantes attacked one camp while police stood by for hours. The incident led to the resignation of the university’s police chief and the creation of a new office of campus safety. Former Chancellor Gene Block was questioned at a congressional hearing on anti-Semitism on campus.

UCLA activists tell me they plan to demonstrate in the fall anyway, despite UC guidelines on protests. Pro-Israel Jewish groups that opposed the camp and accused it of anti-Semitism say they are also keeping a close eye on it.

That includes a collection of organizations on and off campus — including Chabad, Hillel and the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles — that plan to hold a gathering at Stephen Wise Temple next month for an “in-depth exploration of the challenges they have faced over the past year, as well as the challenges ahead this fall.”

With the war between Israel and Hamas continuing and presidential elections just over two months away, it looks set to be a busy fall of protests on California college campuses.

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Universities tighten security and rules after devastating protests in spring