College protests across America: What we know [Video]

College campuses across the United States have erupted with pro-Palestinian protests, and school administrators are trying – and largely failing – to diffuse the situation.Tensions on U.S. college campuses have risen since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, when militants killed about 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages. Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people, according to its health ministry.Reports of antisemitic acts have surged across America and particularly on campus since Oct. 7. Islamophobia has run rampant, too. The recent surge in protests has inflamed those tensions, forcing leadership to decide when free speech on campus crosses a line and becomes threatening.Several schools have called the police on protesters, leading to the arrests of hundreds across multiple campuses.When did the current conflict start?The situation escalated last week at Columbia University when the university’s president, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, testified before a House committee about the school’s …