Important Takeaways:

• Tensions over the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses aren’t going away. Neither are the protests.
• The sudden resignation of Columbia University’s president is quickly resurfacing tensions over the Israel-Hamas war that roiled college campuses this spring — a movement primed to escalate as students return to class.
• Organizers at a string of campuses have started planning demonstrations. And some schools are responding with changes to free speech rules that concern academic freedom advocates. The friction sets up a fraught return to school in a matter of days.
• “We are committed to continuing our activism because we understand that it is not just one individual but the entire institution that is complicit in the ongoing genocide,” said Cam Jones, a lead organizer of the protests at Columbia, in a statement to POLITICO. “We will not rest until Columbia divests and Palestine is free.”
• Schools are adjusting how they will regulate protests, prompting some concerns from First Amendment and academic freedom groups.
• The American Association of University Professors this week condemned what it described as “overly restrictive policies dealing with the rights to assemble and protest on campus.”
• “The mood at both Yale and Columbia and colleges around the country is that what happened at the end of last semester isn’t really over,” said Craig Morton, an organizer with Yalies4Palestine who is facing three charges, including two misdemeanors for trespassing and a charge of disorderly conduct.
• “People are aware of the threat,” he said in an interview. “But people are still pretty intent on getting out there in the fall and continuing to protest.”

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