Across the nation and around the clock. From California to Michigan and along the East Coast, college campuses erupting in protest. Let them go, let them go. Pro-palestinian demonstrators demanding action, refusing to back down. No more money for Israel's crime. We will not stop, we will not rest. As a string of outsiders try to join the conversation. Tonight, we hear from the students themselves. We're at Columbia University, the epicenter of the demonstrations that helped spark nationwide unrest.

The voices in Reza are routinely massacred. On top of that, we have millions of residents within the Reza Strip who are also displaced, starving day in and day out.

As tensions rose dramatically, Jewish students say they've experienced harassment and anti-Semitism. Some say they no longer feel safe on campus.

At this point, it's not about free speech anymore because it has crossed the line into direct harassment and assault. My friends had water thrown in their faces. One of my friends had an Israeli flag ripped out of his hands, and people were throwing hard objects at him, including hitting him in the face and in the chest.

To what extent is this about free speech versus disrupting classes?

The President of the University changed all classes to Zoom. Why should somebody like me, who is not disrupting anything, not be able to go to class because people in there want to do class via Zoom from inside of their tents. To me, that is totally absurd.

Protests first began on campuses after the October seventh Hamas attack on Israel, where roughly 1,200 were killed and 250 were taken hostage, according to the IDF. Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 34,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas run Health Ministry.

We're for Palestine. This is not about us. This is not about the students. This is not about the college. This is about something so much more.

In December, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania faced a congressional drilling on anti-Semitism. It led to their resignations Americans. Just last week, Columbia University's President, Minush Shafik, was also called to testify. Anti-semitism has no place on our campus, and I am personally committed to doing everything I can to confront it directly. The next This day, the NYPD were called in to clear out the encampment built by protesters on Columbia's campus. Administrators say the students were breaking university rules. A hundred people were arrested and charged with trespassing, including Junior Sara Borek. Campus who is Jewish. What went through your head when you were arrested?

It was a scary moment when the riot cops are coming into your college campus and putting you in zip ties. But I think that, again, I knew these risks risks. I knew that that was the risk of the action I was taken.

Sarah was later suspended and lost access to campus, classes, and her dorm, but she says she has no regrets.

What I was taught as a Jew growing up is completely against the actions that you're seeing in Gaza at the hands of the IDF. You're seeing hospitals being destroyed, and that's just completely against everything I was taught, the value of human life as a Jewish person.

Soon after In his arrests, the encampment came back stronger.

Repression breeds more resistance. The more that they repress us, the more that we will resist, and the more that our demands become truer and truer.

Yazun Al-Moussa is a Palestinian-American dental student. He's been protesting on campus since October.

We've also had comments come at us that are very racist, that are very-Islamophobic. Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian. Our goal is to move past that, to understand that our values to free Palestine is in line with anti-Semitism. We've made our demands very clear, and we haven't budged. We asked for financial transparency from all of Colombia's investments. We asked full divestment from all of the profiting that Colombia gets within the bombing, within the Reza Strip. An amnesty for all the students who spoke up.

What happens if there's a stalemate?

We stand steadfast. If anything Palestinians have taught us. It's steadfast within our land. Our people know that every single protester knows that, and we will not move. We will not budge.

Give me a sense of just how delicate that dance is that the university president has to deal with.

They're juggling students, they're juggling parents, alumni, donors, politicians, these outside actors, even residents of the community who all have stakes in this issue. I think they're trying to make choices as to what do you prioritize here. That's an incredibly almost impossible answer.

Isabella Ramirez is the Editor and Chief of the student-run newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator. Where have you seen the line between free speech and hate speech?

That line people draw in different places, and I think that's also part of the issue. Some people say, No, this chant does not mean that. Other people say, Well, this chant makes me deeply feel unsafe and uncomfortable.

Sophmore Alicia Baker is a Middle Eastern history major speaks out in op-eds in the school paper.

For six and a half months, we've been calling out the threatening rhetoric and saying, This is anti-Semitic. We've been told, Well, you're interpreting it wrong. To me, that was an anti-Semitic double standard, too. Why are Jews the only minority group that when we call out threats against us, we're told that we're interpreting it wrong?

Back in January, Columbia student protester, Kymani James, livestreamed anti-Semitic comments.

Be grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zion.

Today, university officials announcing they're barring him from campus. James issued a statement saying, in part, What I said was wrong. Every member of our community deserves to feel safe without qualification. Protest organizers distancing themselves from James.

He apologized, and he asked for space to reflect and learn and grow, and that he will step away from being pressman to proceed.

When you have people chanting, to bomb Tel Aviv and saying that they're Hamas.

I don't think that's activism.

Junior Khaya Dresnik says she and her friends have been the targets of anti-Semitic vitriol. We went to observe a protest that was going on, and they started targeting their trans towards us.

They ended it off with, October seventh will be every day for you guys.

I'm going to do just like they did all the soldiers October seventh. Good. You see how many soldiers we got? Yo, you all got smoked. You all got smoked. We're about to be in a pack with them. One of the groups involved in the protest, the Columbia University Apartheid Divest, said in a statement, Our movement is united in valuing every human life.

We are against all forms of bigotry. We do not stand for that. We allow every single person into our camp. We do not reject people based on ethnicity, based on religion. We ask that everyone respects those community guidelines to be respectful to the people around them.

Student activism on colleges is stitched the fabric of American history, from civil rights protests in the 1960s to the anti-Vietnam war unrest that left four people dead at Kent State University at the hands of the Ohio National Guard. With the weight of history on their shoulders, Columbia students and administrators continue to negotiate with the countdown to commencement less than three weeks away.