WASHINGTON (AP) — Campus activism has flared as the academic year winds down, with pro-Palestinian demonstrations leading to arrests at several colleges.
Compared with last spring, when more than 2,100 people were arrested in campus protests nationwide, the demonstrations have been smaller and more scattered.
But the stakes are also much higher. President Donald Trump's administration has been investigating dozens of colleges over their handling of protests, including allegations of antisemitism, and frozen federal grant money as leverage to press demands for new rules on activism.
Colleges, in turn, have been taking a harder line on discipline and enforcement, following new policies adopted to prevent tent encampments of the kind that stayed up for weeks last year on many campuses.
More are pushing for the same goal that drove last year's protests — an end to university ties with Israel or companies that provide weapons or other support to Israel.
Protesters who took over a Columbia University library this month issued demands including divestment from “occupation, apartheid and genocide” and amnesty for students and workers targeted for discipline by the university. About 80 people were arrested at the protest, which also called for police and federal immigration officials to stay off campus.
A protest at the University of Washington days earlier demanded the school end ties with Boeing, a supplier to the Israeli Defense Forces. Activists wanted the school to return any Boeing donations and bar the company’s employees from teaching at the school. Thirty people were arrested.
Other protests have sparked up at schools including Swarthmore College, Rutgers University, the University of California, Los Angeles and Brooklyn College.
The timing of recent protests may owe to developments in the war itself and the approaching end of the school year, said Robert Cohen, a professor of history and social studies at New York University.
Cohen said activists may be energized by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's discussion of an escalation of the war, at a time many Palestinians already are at risk of starvation amid an Israeli blockade of food and other goods. “And the fact that it is the end of the semester — maybe it seems like the last chance they have to take a stance, to publicize this,” he said.
Still, he sees the latest flare-up as a return to the kind of protests that campuses occasionally saw even before the Israel-Hamas war. As colleges have imposed stricter rules, many students may be unwilling to risk punishment, he said.
“Essentially, you have a small core of people, and the larger mass movement has been suppressed,” he said of the latest activism. “These are small, scattered protests.”
Colleges navigating protests risk losing federal grants for research if their response runs afoul of the government.
The handling of last year’s protests has been at the center of the Trump administration’s fight with Columbia, Harvard and other universities.
Some schools have had money frozen for what the administration calls a failure to root out campus antisemitism. Federal officials have demanded tougher action against protesters, new limits on protests and other changes aimed at pro-Palestinian activism along with diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
After the University of Washington protest, a federal antisemitism task force said it was launching a review. It applauded quick action from police but said it expected campus leaders to “follow up with enforcement actions and policy changes that are clearly necessary to prevent these uprisings moving forward.”
The stakes are also higher for international students as the federal government moves to deport students with ties to pro-Palestinian activism.
After calling police to clear the library occupied by protesters last week, Columbia University suspended 65 students and barred 33 others from campus.
Columbia’s response drew praise from the Trump administration’s task force, which said it was encouraged by the university’s “strong and resolute statement” condemning the protest.
Even before the latest protest, Columbia had agreed to other changes amid pressure from federal officials, including a ban on face masks used to conceal identities and the hiring of new public safety officers empowered to make arrests on campus.
The University of Washington protest also drew a swift response, with 21 students later suspended.
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE - A New York City police officer keeps watch on the campus of Columbia University in New York, Monday, May 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) — Thriston Lawrence walked onto the 10th tee box at 2:20 p.m. to begin his second round at the U.S. Open with his name near the top of the front page of the leaderboard.
Nearly six hours and 73 shots later, the South African's name wasn't so high. And his round still wasn't quite over.
Welcome to Oakmont, where one of golf's toughest tests began with two — or three in the case of Lawrence and a handful of others still on the course when play was suspended at around 8:15 p.m. as a storm passed through — of the sport's longest days.
Lawrence was standing over a 4-foot par putt in the middle of a downpour for a 4-over 74 when the horn blew, 5 hours, 55 minutes after his scheduled tee time.
He turned to ask an official if he could putt out. When the answer came back “no," he marked his ball and hustled with umbrella in hand to the clubhouse.
"Overall, I played nicely, but frustrating day because it felt like we were out there for seven hours,” Lawrence said.
Close enough.
While the late dash of weather didn't help, the pace at the sprawling par-70 layout carved into a hilly slice of Western Pennsylvania so big it's divided by an interstate spared no one.
Not world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who admitted it "it felt long to me,” after taking 5 1/2 hours to put together a 1-over 71 on Friday morning that left him 4 over for the tournament, seven shots behind leader Sam Burns.
Not first-round leader J.J. Spaun, who needed nearly 5 hours, 40 minutes to finish up a 72 that put him in the final group with Burns on Saturday.
Yet Scheffler didn’t find himself checking his watch too often, not even during waits that stretched to 15 minutes or more between shots.
“I’ve got too many concerns other than the pace it takes to get around this place,” he said with a shrug.
By comparison, Scheffler and playing partners Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa might have gotten off easy.
It took Lawrence’s group well over an hour to get through three holes, thanks to a logjam on the tee at the par-5 12th. Players were frequently forced to wait 20 minutes or more to hit their tee shot while members of the group ahead of them either waited for the green to clear in hopes of reaching it in two shots or wandered through the 5-inch-plus rough in hopes of finding their ball. (Hardly a given).
Unless you stick it close (and you probably won't), there's no chance at making up times on greens so fast and so frustrating that Edward S. Stimpson invented his now-eponymous and ubiquitous tool to measure their actual speed.
Even seemingly innocuous approach shots aren't immune, as qualifier Will Chandler found out Friday in the second round when his wedge into the par-4 second hole landed a few paces from the back of the green, then hit reverse and kept rolling for 40 seconds before settling back in the fairway.
Part of the issue at Oakmont is the combination of the layout — where players literally have to cross a bridge over an interstate to get from the first green to the second tee, and again while going from the eighth green to the ninth tee — and the decisions the course forces you to make.
There's typically a backup at the par-4 17th, for example, because at around 300 yards (albeit uphill ones) it's drivable, meaning the group on the green typically has to putt out before the group behind them can go.
Throw in the stakes — the lure of golf immortality (or at the very least, a healthy paycheck for making the cut) for the pros and the walk of a lifetime for amateurs like dentist turned qualifier Matt Vogt — and yeah, things can drag on a bit.
Hovland's second trip through Oakmont was an adventure. His 1-under 69 included only eight pars. There was an eagle thanks to a pitch-in on 17, five birdies, three bogeys, and a double.
During a regular tour event, when scores are lower and the pace is a far more palatable five hours or less, Hovland isn't sure he would have been able to keep things from spiraling out of control after the second, when a poor drive into the right rough was followed by a mangled pitch into a bunker and eventually a double bogey that threatened to rob him of the momentum he'd build over his first 10 holes.
“If it would have happened at another tournament, for example, I could have potentially lost my mind there a little bit,” he said. “But I felt like I kept things together very well.”
The fact Hovland had time to let his frustration melt away before his driver on the third tee may have helped. The 27-year-old Norwegian knows his game well enough to know that he tends to speed things up when a round threatens to go sideways, and not in a good way.
There was no chance of that on Friday.
“Yeah, you might have had a bad hole on the last hole and then you’re sitting on the tee box for 10-20 minutes,” he said. “At least it gives you a good opportunity to get that out of your system and reset and think about the next shot.”
Maybe the rhythm of the day will feel more like normal on Saturday, when the field goes out in pairs instead of threesomes. Or maybe not. Considering the lure of history, he's not going to complain.
“Honestly, we play pretty slow on Tour anyway,” he said with a smile. “So what’s another 40 minutes to go around Oakmont.”
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Taylor Pendrith, of Canada, waits tee off on the 12th hole during the second round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club Friday, June 13, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Thriston Lawrence, of South Africa, lines up a putt on the 12th hole during the second round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club Friday, June 13, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Scottie Scheffler plays out of the Church Pews bunker on the third hole during the second round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club Friday, June 13, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Viktor Hovland, of Norway, reacts after missing a putt on the 18th hole during the second round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club Friday, June 13, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Viktor Hovland, of Norway, reacts after making double bogey on the second hole during the second round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club Friday, June 13, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Brooks Koepka prepares to putt on the 10th hole during the second round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club Friday, June 13, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Viktor Hovland, of Norway, hits from a bunker on the second hole during the second round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club Friday, June 13, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
