At CT college campuses, agitation reignites — with a wider scope
Amanda McCard / CT Mirror
Students hold signs of protest at the University of Connecticut Board of Trustees meeting in Storrs on April 23, 2025.
Around this time last spring, students on college campuses across Connecticut were taking up residence in pro-Palestinian encampments to demonstrate their opposition to the war in Gaza and the role they saw their universities playing in the strife overseas.
This spring, campus demonstrations have returned. But they’re taking place under decidedly different circumstances.
Tuesday evening, Yale University students set up a handful of tents on Beinecke Plaza — the same location where hundreds of community members, almost exactly one year ago, gathered to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
What spurred the action this time around was a visit to the U.S. by Israeli National Security Minister Ben Gvir. As students were protesting, Gvir posted on social media platform X from a dinner in his honor at Mar-a-Lago.
Twelve hours later, Wednesday morning at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, students filed into the monthly Board of Trustees meeting carrying banners and signs that called on school leaders to protect international students amid a Trump administration crackdown on student visa holders. The federal government has revoked more than 50 student visas in Connecticut.
Undergraduate Student Government President Andy Zhang laid out the students’ demands to the board. He asked that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement be banned from private spaces on campus; that UConn establish a fund to provide legal and financial support to individuals impacted by federal enforcement or funding cuts; and that administrators stand up for academic freedom.
“I think it’s really important that the university publicly confirms that they will protect students,” Zhang said.
Fears of student arrests have heightened after plainclothes ICE agents arrested Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil in his apartment building on March 8. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has since detained several international students who protested or voiced opinions in favor of Palestine or against the war in Gaza last year.
Those protests became a flashpoint during President Donald J. Trump’s campaign for a second term, and almost immediately upon taking office in January, he signed an executive order to “combat antisemitism.” In a statement detailing those efforts, the administration said it would “quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses.”
In recent days, leaders at hundreds of higher education institutions — many of whom were clearing out pro-Palestinian encampments last year — have galvanized in opposition to the Trump administration’s actions.
The presidents of Yale University, Wesleyan University, Connecticut College, Trinity College and Connecticut State Community College signed on to a public statement this week in response to the federal government’s actions, calling them, “unprecedented government overreach and political interference [that are] now endangering American higher education.”
“Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation,” the statement reads.
Rallies and demonstrations on campuses are also now taking a broader lens.
Last week, local chapters of the American Association of University Professors organized a “day of action” across the country, including on several campuses in Connecticut. Protesters voiced their opposition to everything from federal funding cuts to student visa cancellations and the Trump administration’s demands of Columbia University and Harvard University — which rallygoers said they saw as threats to academic freedom.
Speaking to the Board of Trustees Wednesday, Zhang, the student government president, was direct. “There are students at UConn, your students, who are afraid to leave their dorms, afraid to go to class or afraid to speak up,” he said. “Collective action, not isolation, is what will keep us safe.”
Reflecting outside after speaking to the board, Zhang said, “Students want to see admin take a stance, they want to see them fight back and be able to defend the students if the time comes.” Then he corrected himself: “I don’t think it’s a matter of if ICE will come on campus, but I think it’s a matter of when.”
In a statement posted on UConn’s website and emailed to the student body Tuesday, UConn President Radenka Maric described the situation as “devastating” for international students.
“We are a Connecticut institution and also a global university with a deep sense of care and compassion for members of our community,” the statement reads. “This is a very difficult and stressful time for our international students, faculty, and staff.”
At Yale, pro-Palestinian protestors don’t appear deterred. Late Tuesday, students linked arms and formed a human chain around their temporary encampment — an effort to prevent it from being broken up.
But around 10 p.m., people who appeared to be employees of the university began handing out a printed card warning protestors of “disciplinary action and/or arrest.” The encampment disbanded shortly thereafter.
On social media, the organizers released a statement. “We know that the struggle for Palestinian liberation is not about one encampment,” it reads. “It is about the continuous struggle for freedom of all people in all places, from New Haven to Palestine.”
On Wednesday night, protestors gathered off campus in New Haven, outside an event where Gvir was speaking.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker watched the protest for about 20 minutes. When asked what he would tell Gvir if they could speak, he said: “Don’t come to our city. It’s unproductive. I don’t know what you say to someone like that. He is someone that clearly thrives on creating controversy.”
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