Voters demand crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests: expulsions and financial ... trends now
Americans seek tough action against the pro-Palestine protestors who have roiled college campuses, with large numbers calling for expulsions and financial penalties, new polling shows.
Six-in-ten respondents said students should be kicked out for making anti-Semitic comments; and nearly half said anti-Israel protestors should lose out on student loan forgiveness schemes.
The DailyMail.com/Tipp survey of 1,435 adults shows a hardening of attitudes to protestors who've erected tents and smashed windows to decry Israel's assault on Hamas in Gaza.
It comes after police cleared a pro-Palestinian tent camp at the University of Chicago on Tuesday, and as clashes continued across the US and increasingly spread to Europe.
Students participate in a pro-Palestine rally at Hunter College in New York, after being blocked by police barricades from reaching the nearby Met Gala
Chicago Police officers prepare to arrest dozens of Pro-Palestinian protesters at the Art Institute of Chicago
Many demonstrators want their schools to divest from firms that do business with Israel or otherwise help the war effort.
Others just want to highlight mass Palestinian deaths in Gaza and for the war to end.
Still, others go further, by attacking and harassing Jewish students.
In one notable example, Columbia University' Khymani James was banned from campus last month after videos emerged of the student saying Zionists 'don't deserve to live.'
The protests have raised tough questions about the limits of free speech on campus, when criticizing Israel becomes anti-Semitism, and whether Jewish and conservative students can safely attend classes.
The clashes come as officials try a range of strategies, from appeasement to threats of disciplinary action, to resolve the protests and clear the way for graduation ceremonies.
At MIT, protesters had a Monday afternoon deadline to voluntarily leave or face suspension.
Dozens of demonstrators remained at the encampment on Monday night, listening to speakers and chanting before taking a pizza break.
At the Rhode Island School of Design, where students started occupying a building Monday, a spokesperson said the school affirms students' rights to peaceful protest and laid plans for talks with demonstrators.
Officials at New York City's Columbia University, where the protest movement began about three weeks ago, on Monday canceled its large main graduation ceremony.
Students could celebrate at a series of smaller, school-based events, they said.
The survey shows a hardening of attitudes to protestors who have erected tents and smashed windows to decry Israel's assault
Columbia had already canceled in-person classes. More than 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia's green or occupied an academic building were arrested in recent weeks.
Harvard University's interim president, Alan Garber, warned students that those in an encampment in
