College protests updates: Police crackdown leads to hundreds of arrests

The White House said Sunday that President Joe Biden respects the right of demonstrators to make their voices heard -- peacefully -- and "we don't want to see anybody hurt in the process."

"The president knows that there are very strong feelings about the war in Gaza. He understands that, he respects that, and as he has said many times, we certainly respect the right of peaceful protest. People should have the ability to air their views and to share their perspectives publicly, but it has to be peaceful," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told ABC News "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.

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Hamas is ‘considering' hostage deal on the table: John Kirby

George Stephanopoulos interviews White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby on “This Week.”

ABCNews.com

Kirby did warn that some language heard during the demonstrations crossed a line with the administration.

"We absolutely condemn the antisemitism language that we've heard of late, and we certainly condemn all the hate speech and the threats of violence out there. These protests, we understand they're important, but they do need to be peaceful," he said.

"We'll leave it to local authorities to determine how these protests are managed," Kirby told Stephanopoulos, "but we want them to be peaceful protests and obviously we don't want to see anybody hurt in the process of peacefully protesting."

-ABC News' Tal Axelrod

The University of Southern California closed its main campus Saturday evening "due to a disturbance," the university said on X.

Los Angeles Police Department issued a citywide tactical alert due to a protest on USC's campus, urging people to avoid the area.

A tactical alert allows LAPD to keep officers on past their shifts and to move officers between divisions if they need extra staffing in one area of the city.

"There is no truth to claims of an impending lockdown or evictions on campus," Columbia University said in a memo to students Saturday evening.

The dialogue between the university officials and the student organizers remains ongoing, according to the university.

Twenty-three people were arrested Saturday at an encampment at Indiana University, the university said.

A group erected tents and canopies on the Bloomington campus' Dunn Meadow Friday night "with the stated intention to occupy the university space indefinitely," in violation of school policy, the university said in a statement.

University and state police gave the group "multiple warnings" midday Saturday to remove the structures before detaining them for charges ranging from criminal trespass to resisting law enforcement, the university said. It is unclear what their affiliation with the university is, the school said.

"The Indiana University Police Department continues to support peaceful protests on campus that follow university policy," the university said in a statement.

The IU Divestment Coalition, a Pro-Palestinian campus group that organized the protest, said many of those arrested were students.

"They are trying to intimidate us, they are trying to break our spirit and our organizing but we will continue to stand for Gaza," the group said on social media.