Atlanta, United States:

US President Joe Biden said Sunday he heard the voice of Gaza war protesters as some students turned their backs on his graduation ceremony speech at the former university of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.

A small number of graduates carried out the silent protest, with some holding Palestinian flags and one holding up a fist as Biden spoke at Morehouse College, a historically Black university in Atlanta, Georgia.

Others wore keffiyeh scarves over their gowns in a sign of solidarity with the protests that have roiled campuses across the United States over Israel’s offensive on Gaza after the Hamas October 7 attacks.

“I support peaceful, non-violent protest. Your voices should be heard, and I promise you I hear them,” said Biden, who wore a maroon and black gown in the colors of the all-male university.

Tune in as I deliver Morehouse College’s 2024 Spring Commencement Address. https://t.co/tY7w3LzLCh

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 19, 2024

The speech was Biden’s most direct encounter with US students since the Gaza protests engulfed campuses nationwide, causing him political troubles with an election rematch against Donald Trump just over six months away.

“This is one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world. There’s nothing easy about it,” added Biden about Gaza.

“I know it angers and frustrates many of you, including my family, but most of all, I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine as well.”

He did not elaborate, but First Lady Jill Biden reportedly urged the president in April to “stop it now” as the toll of Palestinian civilians mounted from Israel’s offensive.

A number of Morehouse students had called for Biden’s speech to be canceled over the Gaza war but the ceremony went ahead without disruption.

Biden told the students that Gaza was enduring a “humanitarian crisis” and that he was working for an “immediate ceasefire to stop the fighting, bring the hostages home.”

The 81-year-old Democrat added that he was pushing for a “lasting, durable peace” in the wider Middle East that would lead to an independent Palestinian state, which he called the “only solution.”

The president’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is in Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend trying to push for a ceasefire as well as a normalization deal between the two countries.

Biden had earlier applauded as the college’s valedictorian, DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, also called for an immediate ceasefire in his own speech.

“It is important to recognize both sides have suffered heavy casualties since October 7,” said Fletcher.

Morehouse College president David Thomas — who had earlier this week threatened to shut down the ceremony if it was disrupted — told Biden after the speech that “you’ve been listening.”

“You spoke to the hard issues confronting our nation and the world at this moment,” said Thomas.

The speech at the alma mater of rights hero King was part of a series of Biden events this week aimed at winning over Black voters, amid polls showing that their support for him is flagging.

Biden did not specifically mention his rival Donald Trump but leaned heavily into themes of democracy and racism that he has previously invoked while talking about the twice-impeached Republican former president. 

“This is what we’re up against — extremist forces aligned against the meaning and message of Morehouse,” said Biden.

The desire to know what freedom is and what it can be is the heart and soul of this college.

Proving that a free nation is born in the hearts of men spellbound by fearlessness and freedom.

That’s the magic of Morehouse.

That’s the magic of America. pic.twitter.com/mUmRBCkrOj

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 19, 2024

His outreach efforts to Black voters and Gaza protesters were two sides of the same coin as Biden tries to shore up support among the coalition that helped him beat Trump in 2020.

Later Sunday Biden traveled to Detroit in the key swing state of Michigan where he visited a cafe owned by two former NBA players, brothers Joe and Jordan Crawford.

“The guy we’re running against wants to back up all the progress we made,” Biden said.

A New York Times/Siena poll last week showed that, in addition to trailing Trump in several key battleground states, Biden is also losing ground with African Americans.

Trump is winning more than 20 percent of Black voters in the poll — which would be the highest level of Black support for a Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964, it said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New York, United States:

Student anger with university officials and law enforcement fueled worsening tensions on several US campuses Tuesday after days of pro-Palestinian protests that have triggered mass arrests and shut down classes.

Some of America’s most prestigious universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks as students and other agitators take over quads and disrupt campus activities, furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

At Columbia University in New York, the core of the spreading protests, organizers are calling for the university to divest from companies “that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine.”

Pro-Israel supporters and others worried about campus safety have pointed to anti-Semitic incidents and argue that campuses are encouraging intimidation and hate speech.

“Students have the right to protest, but they are not allowed to disrupt campus life or harass and intimidate,” Columbia’s vice president of public affairs Ben Chang told reporters Monday. 

“We are acting on concerns we are hearing from our Jewish students,” he said, adding that university officials were meeting “in good faith” with the demonstrators.

Protesters meanwhile — including a number of Jewish students in the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” — say they’ve disavowed instances of anti-Semitism and are there to support Palestinians.

“My college administration, my representatives in Congress and my own president have continually acted as spokespeople for the Jewish community, equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism,” Jewish student Sarah Borus, from Columbia’s Barnard College, said at a news conference held by Jewish and Palestinian students.

“They silence us, suspend us,” she added.

Protesting students also said they had been called slurs by a pro-Israel professor and that anti-Muslim incidents on campus were being ignored.

But another Jewish student at Columbia, Nick Baum, told CNN he has felt “downright unsafe” on campus in recent days, saying anti-Semitism there has “reached a boiling point.” 

Professors have pushed back since Columbia President Minouche Shafik called in police last week to arrest students, with some announcing they would not enforce student suspensions.

While there is a long history of campus activism around Israel and the Palestinian cause, flaring tensions amid the war have attracted major media and political scrutiny.

“Jewish students at Columbia University don’t feel safe. It’s become so dangerous that students were forced out of the classroom,” Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Tuesday.

“Let’s be clear: these are not peaceful protests, these are anti-Semitic mobs.”

NYU arrests

Further downtown, 133 people were arrested at New York University (NYU) and released after being issued with court summons, the New York Police Department told AFP, as protests also intensify at other colleges.

An NYU spokesman said the decision to call police to the campus came after additional demonstrators, many of whom were not thought to be affiliated with the university, breached the barriers erected around the protest encampment.

This “dramatically changed” the situation, the spokesman said in a statement on the school’s website Monday, citing “disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behavior” along with “intimidated chants and several anti-Semitic incidents.”

On the West Coast, California State Polytechnic University announced it would be closed until at least Wednesday after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied an administrative building.

The protests have also drawn the attention of President Joe Biden and his administration.

“Anti-Semitic hate on college campuses is unacceptable,” US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona posted on X on Tuesday, expressing concern about the unrest. 

That afternoon, hundreds of NYU students and faculty staged a walkout.

There have also been demonstrations at MIT, the University of Michigan, UC Berkeley and Yale, where at least 47 people were arrested Monday after refusing requests to disperse.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)