Universities across the US are planning tougher rules to restrict protests when students return from summer vacation, an effort to avoid the scenes of last semester when demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza led to police crackdowns on campuses nationwide, the Guardian reported. 

Columbia University students, who were at the vanguard of the movement, may encounter the most changes. The university president, Minouche Shafik, resigned a week ago in the wake of criticism for her handling of the protests, but not before overseeing the installation of fencing around the lawns of the school’s quad – the heart of campus life and the site of large protest encampments.

The barriers are not the only novelty the university introduced as it seeks to avoid a repeat of last spring’s showdown with protesters, which culminated in 109 arrests when Shafik called in the NYPD for a second time in April. 

Students are already planning ways to get around new protest restrictions.

“It’s going to be more of a police state than it was, but I don’t think that means no one’s going to do anything,” said Ben-Menachem, the Columbia graduate student. “The war is still there … nothing has changed in Palestine.”