AUSTIN, Texas: Spiraling pro-Palestinian protests that are rocking universities across the United States spread to more campuses on Wednesday, triggering suggestions from a senior Republican leader that the National Guard could be brought in.
The comments from House Speaker Mike Johnson are likely to evoke strong emotions in a country where the 1970 killing of unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War by National Guardsmen lives on in folk memory.
Demonstrations erupted at the University of Southern California on Wednesday, and in Texas, where a tense standoff developed between students and police in riot gear, with more than 20 people detained.
It was the latest confrontation between law enforcement and students angry at the mounting death toll in Israel's war on Hamas.
The movement began at Columbia University in New York, where dozens of arrests were made last week after university authorities called in police to quell an occupation that Jewish students said was threatening and antisemitic.
Johnson told reporters at Columbia that if the demonstrations were not contained quickly, it would be "an appropriate time for the National Guard."
He said he intended to demand US President Joe Biden "take action" and warned that the demonstrations "place a target on the backs of Jewish students in the United States."
White House spokesman Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden backed free speech.
"The president believes that free speech, debate and nondiscrimination on college campuses are important," she told reporters.
US ally Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas' attacks on October 7 that left about 1,170 people dead, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally of Israeli official figures show.
Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where the death toll has topped 34,200, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there, and are calling on Columbia and other universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel.
The demonstrators, including a number of Jewish students, have disavowed instances of antisemitism.
But pro-Israel supporters and others worried about campus safety have pointed to antisemitic incidents and argued that campuses are encouraging intimidation and hate speech.
'Down with occupation'
Johnson's visit to Columbia came as Texas deployed police in riot gear at the University of Texas in Austin, where hundreds of protesters staged a boisterous walkout, chanting "down with occupation."
Police said they had arrested more than 20 people, with Greg Abbott, the state's governor, urging swift punishment.
"These protesters belong in jail," he wrote on social media. "Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled."
Police were on scene in Los Angeles after hundreds of students began what they called an occupation on the campus of the University of Southern California.
Students chanted "Free, free Palestine," as well as the controversial slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," which some interpret as calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.
The university said it was closing the campus to outside visitors, though classes and other activities would continue.
Students have also launched protests at schools including Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, and Brown.
Social media images showed an encampment taking shape at Harvard University.
Classes were moved online and other on-campus activities canceled at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, after protesters barricaded themselves in a campus building.
More than 130 people were arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest at New York University Monday night.
And police at the University of Minnesota reportedly detained nine people at an encampment.
NBC reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is coordinating with universities over antisemitic threats and possible violence in connection with the ongoing wave of protests.
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