Free speech battles on US college campuses

Aaron McIntyre skipped his math and environmental sciences classes Wednesday to join fellow students at the heart of Howard University’s campus.

“If we stand up for Palestine,’’ the freshman from Chicago told a cheering crowd. “We stand up for oppressed people everywhere!”

McIntyre was one of hundreds of students at Howard who showed up to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. The Howard protest is one of many at U.S. colleges and universities amid a surge in campus activism involving the 20-day war between Israel and Hamas.

The demonstrations have left some students and their parents scared and triggered unyielding criticism and condemnation of how university leaders are handling the behavior.

Protests on college campuses aren't new. But these movements feel different than student protests of the past around causes like the Vietnam war, experts say. Instead of uniting behind a single cause, students are shouting down their classmates and holding dueling protests. The tumult is been fueled by an increasingly bitter social media landscape, along with the nuanced complexity of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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