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Arrests took place early Monday at a pro-Palestinian protest at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, the school said.
“They are being made,” a school spokesman said in an email early Monday.
The numbers of those arrested and of those demonstrating could not be learned immediately. Posts on X indicated that hundreds were demonstrating and that several had been arrested.
Around 3:30 a.m., the school said on X that an “incident” at the Graduate Life Center, where an encampment has been located since Friday, had “stabilized.” It said police remained on site and urged members of its community to avoid the area.
Police arrested protesters on April 28 during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. (Video: Reuters)
The events at Virginia Tech reflected those taking place around the country in recent days as campus officials have faced off with pro-Palestinian protesters calling for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Among other causes, people have also demonstrated in support of Palestinian rights and have demanded their schools disclose or cease investment in companies doing business with Israel.
The protests have ranged from peaceful sit-ins to confrontations with police or counterprotesters, with some administrators citing reports of antisemitic speech and violence.
For Jewish students, the moment has been especially fraught: While some have joined or even led protest movements calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, others have reported feeling threatened or unsafe near pro-Palestinian encampments.
Virginia Tech said the protest on its campus began Friday morning outside the Graduate Life Center, consisting of “a small gathering of members of the university community and others not affiliated with Virginia Tech.” The school said protesters had been told that they were violating policy on the use of campus facilities.
In its statement, the university said that on Sunday, protesters “continued to refuse to comply with policy and took further steps to occupy the lawn of the Graduate Life Center” and spaces next to a student center. It added it “recognized that the situation had the increasing potential to become unsafe.”
Virginia Tech added that it “values free speech and the protesters’ right to be heard, but only if the rights of others and public safety can be assured.”
The arrests in Blacksburg followed those made Saturday at another public institution in Virginia. The University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg said 12 people, including nine students, were arrested in connection with a protest that it said violated guidelines.
At George Washington University in D.C., several students were suspended last week when they refused to leave their encampment on University Yard, a central gathering space on campus less than a mile west of the White House. GW President Ellen M. Granberg said in a statement that the protest violated the school’s rules of conduct and that some of the protesters’ actions were “highly offensive to many members of our community.”
Granberg said Sunday that there had been known “incidents of violence” tied to the encampment. At some point on Thursday, she said, the school “requested the assistance” of D.C. police to “provide additional support related to the demonstration.”
As The Washington Post reported, D.C. police rejected pleas from the university to clear demonstrators out of the encampment early Friday morning, saying they worried about the optics of moving against a small number of peaceful protesters, according to two officials familiar with the talks.
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