Dozens of anti-Israel student protesters at Brown University were arrested, and a weeklong sit-in at Haverford College ended Wednesday under threat of disciplinary action as U.S. college campuses continue to be roiled by antisemitic tensions.

Brown’s police department charged 41 students with trespass when they refused to leave the University Hall administrative building after business hours on Monday, according to officials at the Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island.

Earlier that day, protesters had met with Brown President Christina H. Paxson and demanded that Brown divest “its endowment from Israeli military occupation,” the school said in a statement on the arrests. Students were photographed and fingerprinted at the administration building before their release Monday night. Other students waited outside to cheer them on.

It was the second round of arrests at Brown in a little over a month as college administrators around the country try to reconcile the rights of students to protest with the schools’ imperative to maintain order.

Brown said Wednesday that while protest is “a necessary and acceptable means of expression on campus,” students may not “interfere with the normal functions of the University.” The school warned of even more severe consequences if students fail to heed restrictions on the time, place and manner of protests.

“The disruption to secure buildings is not acceptable, and the University is prepared to escalate the level of criminal charges for future incidents of students occupying secure buildings,” Brown said.

Below is a video of university administrators warning the protesters of the consequences if they remain in the building:

On Wednesday, two Jewish students at Brown University reported that their off-campus apartment, which was identifiable as Jewish by the Israeli flag hanging outside it, suffered a break-in, with the perpetrator leaving a threatening antisemitic note. The Providence Police have launched an investigation into the incident.

At Haverford, outside Philadelphia, anti-Israel students began their sit-in on Dec. 6 and occupied Founders Hall, which houses administrative offices. They are demanding that college President Wendy Raymond publicly call for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Hundreds of students participated over the last week, taking deliveries of food and setting up study spaces. Professors even dropped in to teach, according to student organizers.

The college asserted that the protesters were hindering fellow students, staff and faculty, and told the sit-in organizers Tuesday night that “they must discontinue actions that impede student learning and the functions of the College, which include the sit-in inside Founders Hall,” Raymond and the college dean said in a campus message Wednesday morning.

Student organizers told The Associated Press that college officials threatened to haul protesters before a disciplinary panel if they didn’t leave the hall. About 50 students defied the warning and slept in the building overnight before protesters held one last rally Wednesday morning and delivered letters to Raymond before disbanding.

The threat of discipline played a role in the decision to end the sit-in, according to Julian Kennedy, a 21-year-old junior and organizer with Haverford Students for Peace. But he said organizers also concluded that the sit-in would not compel Haverford to meet the group’s demands.

“At this point, we just see that this college as an institution is broken and has lost its values,” said Kennedy, accusing Haverford of betraying its Quaker pacifist roots.

Ellie Baron, a 20-year-old junior and protest organizer, said the group will pressure Haverford in other ways.

“Just because the sit-in is over, doesn’t mean our efforts are over. We are extraordinarily upset our president refuses to call for a cease-fire,” Baron said.

The arrests and sit-in came amid continuing fallout over the testimony given by leaders of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT at a congressional hearing on antisemitism last week. The presidents drew fire for carefully worded responses to a line of questioning from New York Republican Elise Stefanik, who repeatedly asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate the schools’ rules. Penn’s president resigned over the weekend while, at Harvard, the governing board declared its support for the school’s embattled president.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem & AP)