College students are already protesting (and getting arrested) for Israel this semester

University of Michigan security broke up a pro-Palestinian student demonstration on Wednesday and police arrested four people, in the latest sign that activism on campuses across the country is resuming as the fall semester begins.

According to a university spokesperson, none of the four people arrested were students. One of them is a temporary university employee. At least one detained protester had a physical altercation with police, according to the Michigan Daily student newspaper.

The protest was supported by a pro-Palestinian student coalition that includes the university chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace and took place during a popular outdoor rally for fall student activities. Members of the group claimed on Instagram that one student had been arrested and later released.

Many universities, including Michigan State University, have said they will enforce rules regarding protests more vigorously this semester. The school agreed to change its enforcement policies after the U.S. Department of Education determined it had violated the civil rights of its Jewish students by not doing a better job of disciplining protesters. Jewish and free speech groups had also expressed concern that the demonstrations and subsequent mass arrests created a hostile environment on campuses in the spring.

But in Ann Arbor and elsewhere, groups pushing for divestment from Israel have also returned to campuses determined to continue their activism.

The night before the arrests, Michigan’s student government tentatively approved a budget for fall student activities after its student body president was elected on a platform of denying funding to all student groups until the university divests from Israel.

The scene in Michigan was the most striking example of volatile campus protests returning with the start of classes, but other campuses have also faced controversies surrounding Israel and Gaza. A pro-Palestinian flyer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology referenced Project Mapping, a website targeting Boston-area Jewish institutions that has been condemned as anti-Semitic by a range of Jewish groups and politicians. The project has also been repudiated by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

The incident prompted condemnation from MIT’s Jewish president, Sally Kornbluth. Kornbluth faced intense backlash last year over anti-Semitism at MIT but has remained in her post. She is the only Ivy League president to appear before Congress and remain in office.

“I believe that Project Mapping promotes anti-Semitism,” Kornbluth wrote in a letter to students this week. He added: “I have heard from students who felt that the flyers conveyed the message that they are not welcome at MIT. Do we really want to draw lines on the first day and risk having some of our newest students question whether they belong here?”

And on Monday, the first day of classes at Cornell University, about 150 protesters staged an anti-Israel demonstration in the campus dining hall. They unfurled signs reading “If not now, when?” in Hebrew, a reference to a famous quote by Hillel, an ancient Jewish sage. At one point, the protesters were joined by unionized university employees who were striking over their wages. No arrests were made, but the university condemned the spray painting of blood on an administration building.

Some schools, including Harvard, preemptively warned their students this week not to participate in disruptive protests. However, even at schools that have taken additional measures to protect their campuses against unrest, a new round of protests is expected.

At a consortium of California universities, pro-Palestinian activists have planned a coordinated action for Thursday. A masked protest group at Pomona College, a private school near Los Angeles, shut down their school’s assembly on Tuesday. The event was streamed online; no arrests were made, despite the school warning in advance that violators of its mask ban would be disciplined.

New types of student protests appear designed to flaunt their schools’ restrictions: After a federal judge ruled that a university cannot allow protesters to restrict Jewish students’ movement across campus, student protesters at Sonoma State University set up fake Israeli “checkpoints” and blocked students’ access across campus.

The conservative political backlash to the protests is also mobilizing again. This week, 24 Republican state attorneys general warned Brown University against moving forward with a plan to vote on divestment from Israel in October, saying it could lead to states cutting off all business with Brown in accordance with their anti-Israel boycott laws. Brown had agreed to the vote as part of negotiations with his pro-Palestinian camp movement in the spring.

Some campuses that were hotbeds of protest last year have remained relatively quiet so far. At Columbia University and Barnard College in New York City, where students have begun moving in but classes have not yet started, small groups of activists offered leaflets denouncing Israel to passersby on Broadway, the city street that separates the campuses, but did not hold any protests Thursday. Both campuses are closed to people not affiliated with the schools to mute the effect of outsiders on activism there.