President Biden is breaking his silence on the student led anti-war protests sweeping the country, telling demonstrators they have a right to free speech.

But that violent protest is not protected.

While rejecting calls to change his administration's approach to the war in Gaza and emphasizing there's no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or discrimination against Arab and Palestinian Americans.

His comments come as the unrest on college campuses grow.

Violent clashes among dueling pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups have been reported at UCLA and the University of Arizona, with more than 1800 people total arrested on university and college grounds in the last two weeks.

That includes more than a dozen demonstrators at Princeton University since they began an encampment.

But the movement has largely remained peaceful here.

Ted Goldberg is at Rutgers University in New Brunswick with the latest.

Brianna, as you can see, the protesters are starting to pack up their stuff, starting to take down these tents that have become a pretty commonplace sight here on the Voorhees Mall, students, I'm told, did not get all of their demands, but they got most of them.

Rutgers administration had sent out a very strongly worded message earlier today, saying that students had to clear out of here with their tents, with their belongings by 4:00, otherwise they could face arrest and charges for trespassing.

There had been folks here for a few days now making a demands among the Rutgers administration, chief among them divesting from Israel, divesting from companies associated with Israel, and also having the school sever ties with Tel Aviv University cities.

So these protesters, they camped out here.

They've been pretty vocal on campus definitely over the last few days.

But over the last few months I've covered some protests here as well.

No arrests on Rutgers, which is something that we can say is unique to the Rutgers New Brunswick campus.

Obviously, Princeton had its encampment still ongoing.

It's been a week as of today, and they had some arrests.

A couple last week for trespassing, went to graduate students, refused to take down their tents when they were asked to.

And then earlier this week on Monday, there were 13 people arrested, among them 11 students, one postdoctoral researcher and one person who the school says was unaffiliated with the university.

So we've seen a variety of ways that encampments have ended at campuses across the country.

We have seen administrations at colleges give up some demands, give these protesters some of the things they were looking for.

And then we've obviously seen much more violent endings to these encampments, like we saw lots of violence in New York City, obviously, over the last few weeks, starting with Columbia and extending into CCNY.

And while this situation did look a little fraught, there was an increased police presence as well.

It's not like we saw a lot of kettling happening.

It's not like the police had to be rough with the students.

It's not like there was anyone.

There was anyone here getting hurt or anybody getting arrested.

So the students get a lot of what they asked for, if not all of what they asked for.

And the administration no longer has to deal with these tents on Voorhees Mall.

They don't have to worry about disruption during finals.

There were a lot of finals canceled this morning.

They resumed at noon.

Those finals this morning have been rescheduled to a later date and a later time.

So while those finals were affected, it doesn't seem like any other finals will be affected.

Although a few students did tell me that if the administration does not acquiesce to their demands in the way that they'd like to see, we could see more tents here at Voorhees Mall.

So while the situation did get a little fraught today, a little bit this week doesn't seem like there will be much violence as the day closes out.

Of course, there could be more tense in the future, but it seems Rutgers administration and students have come to an understanding some kind of a framework where the students will get most of the things that they asked for from the administration.

In exchange, the administration will not have to worry about disruption during finals here in New Brunswick.

This is Ted Goldberg at Rutgers for NJ Spotlight News.