LOS ANGELES — Officials shut down the campus of Cal Poly Humboldt on Monday night after masked pro-Palestinian protesters occupied an administrative building and barricaded the entrance as Gaza-related demonstrations roiled campuses across the nation.

Three students were arrested after law enforcement officers wearing helmets and riot shields descended on the public university in Arcata, in rural Northern California, and clashed with demonstrators who had set up tents inside Siemens Hall and erected a banner that said, “STOP THE GENOCIDE.”

“Free, Free Palestine,” supporters chanted outside the building. “Long Live Resistance!”

As sprawling pro-Palestinian protests and encampments escalate on university campuses across the United States, administrators are reacting with more forceful discipline as they try to balance pro-Palestinian students’ free speech rights with concerns for safety and other students’ counter claims of harassment, intimidation and disruption.

At Columbia, in-person classes were canceled Monday and the president asked students to stay home after more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested last week and protesters established a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on a central lawn. Some Jewish students complained they were harassed, even assaulted, by protesters who blocked their movement.

At Yale, at least 60 protesters who camped at Beinecke Plaza were arrested after the university said they refused a final request to leave voluntarily.

At UC Berkeley, students set up a Gaza solidarity encampment at Sproul Plaza — the historic ground zero of the 1960s free speech movement — demanding that UC divest from the Israel-Hamas war.

As hundreds gathered at an encampment at New York University, administrators called on the NPYD to come in after the protest became “disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing” and they learned of reports of “intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents,” a spokesperson said in a statement,

Tensions flared quickly at Cal Poly Humboldt.

About 4:50 p.m. Monday, campus police received reports of dozens of students occupying Siemens Hall, the university said in a statement.

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