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Kellogg Biological Station

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Michigan State University (MSU) Transfers: 2024 Requirements, Dates, GPAs & More

How effective are michigan state university (msu) virtual tours.

It depends how you use them. Michigan State University (MSU) is a hustling, bustling campus and community. The beauty of Michigan State University (MSU) virtual tours on CampusReel is that authentic video tours, made by real students, can be spectacular at capturing the Michigan State University (MSU) vibe. We also go well beyond the confines of the Michigan State University (MSU) campus by taking you around East Lansing. In traditional virtual tours, you will mostly see still, unengaging images and will not see the surrounding area at all – which is why CampusReel virtual tours are so important.

Can a Michigan State University (MSU) virtual tour replace a traditional in-person visit?

If you cannot visit Michigan State University (MSU) in person, then we can honestly say that we believe a CampusReel virtual tour of Michigan State University (MSU) is absolutely the most effective and holistic way to understand the Michigan State University (MSU) people, campus and community. However, if you do plan on visiting Michigan State University (MSU) and other colleges in person, we strongly recommend that you at least prescreen your college options on CampusReel before spending the time and money to visit. Most prospective families find that as soon as the step on campus, they instantly know whether or not they like the school – but they’ve already spent all that time and money getting there! Our goal is to eliminate all the time and money visiting Michigan State University (MSU) in person until you can make a strong educated guess that it’s worth the investment.

What places can I virtually tour at Michigan State University (MSU)?

For your convenience, below is a list of Michigan State University (MSU) places you can virtually tour on CampusReel.

• West Akers Hall at Michigan State University (MSU)
• 1855 Place at Michigan State University (MSU)
• Landon Hall at Michigan State University (MSU)
• Holden Hall at Michigan State University (MSU)
• Snyder Hall at Michigan State University (MSU)
• Bailey Hall at Michigan State University (MSU)
• Communication Arts and Sciences Building at Michigan State University (MSU)

What are the downsides of a Michigan State University (MSU) virtual tour?

The downside of virtually touring Michigan State University (MSU) on CampusReel is that, admittedly, our technology does not yet mimic the exact feeling and experience of visiting Michigan State University (MSU) in person. We are working on this though! A common request we also receive from users is to add more perspectives (e.g. student guides) to the platform. Rest assured we are working on adding more CampusReel guides to the Michigan State University (MSU) virtual tour. However, our selection of guides still far outweighs the available perspectives of traditional virtual tour platforms.

What are the benefits of a Michigan State University (MSU) virtual tour?

The most obvious benefit of a Michigan State University (MSU) virtual tour on CampusReel is that is can be accessed from anywhere. This can save families a lot of time and money compared to visiting Michigan State University (MSU) in person . Another often overlooked benefit of a CampusReel virtual tour is that it goes far beyond a traditional in person tour Michigan State University (MSU) . Campus visits are limited both in time and scope – how are you expected to truly understand a college in a 1 hour tour? That’s why we stress the added benefit of CampusReel virtual tours – experience Michigan State University (MSU) and East Lansing during different seasons, days of the week, and even hours of the day. What’s game day like? What is finals week life? Again, traditional virtual touring platforms don’t include this benefit.

Check out these related virtual tours:

• Virtal tour to DePaul University
• Virtal tour to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
• Virtal tour to Ball State University (BSU)
• Virtal tour to Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI)
• Virtal tour to Central Michigan University (CMU)

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Articles & Advice > Campus Visits > Blog

Video: Michigan State University Lansing Town Tour

Sometimes you can't go on campus visits, but someone else can for you! Watch student vlogger Daniel tour the campus of Michigan State University in this video.

by CollegeXpress

Last Updated: May 3, 2024

Originally Posted: Nov 14, 2017

When narrowing down which college to attend, it’s important to consider the campus environment and surrounding community. But it's not always possible to go on campus visits yourself. Have no fear! Student vlogger Daniel Isabella is here to give a tour of the East Lansing area surrounding Michigan State University . It may be only one school, but the tour can give you an idea of what it's like to attend a school in a big college town. Check out the video below!

2 unexpected (but key) things to do on a college tour

In order to get a really good idea of what a college is like , you have to hit both some of its highlights that everyone recommends and its unexpected locations. We all know a lot of the places to look for on a normal tour, but have you thought about exploring the nearby town or looking for things that pique your personal interests? Here are two quick tips: 

• Explore the local area: Remember, as much as academics are crucial to the college experience, you should also branch out to the surrounding town. When you attend a college, you’ll inevitably want to get off campus every now and again for some fun with friends. Looking for a college in an interesting and easily accessible city or populated area is important. For instance, according to Daniel, the Lansing area is a college town at heart with campuses for other colleges nearby.
• Seek out your interests: Daniel says that the most important things to seek out are the places on and off campus that align with your interests. Daniel is a theater lover, so being near the Wharton Center of Performing Arts has allowed him to get a hands-on experience with a subject he's passionate about. 

This quick tour of East Lansing gave us a great idea of the kind of fun and atmosphere students are exposed to at Michigan State University. So whether you’re going on campus visits or not, remember to find a way to explore and learn about the surrounding area of the colleges you’re interested in.

Are you interested in Michigan State University ? Learn more about the University by visiting its CX profile!

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Office of Admissions

Campus visit

These campus visit programs are for students who have not yet been admitted to MSU.  If you are an admitted student, please sign up for an admitted student program . Prospective transfer students should sign up for a transfer student campus visit .

Reservations are required for all programs. Please note that all times are in the Eastern time zone.  

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Office of the President

April 26, 2024

Apr. 26, 2024: Encampment Update

Dear MSU leaders,

I am writing to provide you with an update about the protest that began early yesterday at People's Park on our campus.

Thursday morning, the university learned that a group of protesters had established an encampment, calling for MSU to divest from Israel. MSU Department of Police and Public Safety engaged in peaceful discussions with the leaders of the group, informing them that the setting up of tents violates MSU Ordinance 13, which prohibits camping on university property. The group was reminded that they were free to continue their protest without the tents and were made aware that they could apply for a permit to allow the tents.

Shortly thereafter, I visited the site and spoke with the individuals at the encampment, as did SVP Vennie Gore, VP Laura Rugless and other members of the SLE team, underscoring our commitment to dialogue and understanding among all community members. Outreach also has been made to our Jewish leaders and organizations on campus who we know are impacted by the presence of the protest.

After consultation with members of my leadership team and Board of Trustees Chair Dan Kelly, the permit request to allow tents was granted through Sunday.

Those gathered at People’s Park have remained peaceful, and MSU police will continue to act in ways that protect all members of the campus community. There have been no altercations and no arrests have been made.

The university respects and upholds the right to protest and freedom of speech. At the same time, certain regulations must be adhered to ensure the safety and proper functioning of our campus. Our police department was instrumental in ensuring a safe environment for the protest and for our greater campus, and I’m grateful for their professionalism and commitment to our Spartan community.

As we have discussed with various groups over the past several months, and I expressed to the protesters today, MSU has been steadfast in its commitment to safeguarding the university’s investment portfolio from political influence. We have no direct investments in gun manufacturers, and we do not have direct or indirect investments in the three publicly traded civilian firearms manufacturers. Further, the university does not own an Israeli-issued security bond. Given this context, and as the Board has previously indicated, the university will not be making any divestment changes. Our investment decisions will continue to focus on strong financial stewardship that allows us to advance our educational and outreach mission.

Commencement

At this time, we do not believe student protestors will move their location to the site of commencement. MSU DPPS is working alongside university officials to help ensure the safety of our commencement ceremonies.

• The Provost Office has created safety plans for the events at Breslin Center and individual college ceremonies, working in conjunction with MSU DPPS.
• MSU police will be prepared for protests and work with other campus partners on outreach, as appropriate.
• To facilitate any protests that do take place, MSU DPPS will have a designated visible protest area outside of the Breslin Center and Wharton Center this weekend.
• For college-specific ceremonies, event organizers are encouraged to work directly with DPPS should there be a need for designated protest space and/or additional police staffing.

Safe and Inclusive Community

The safety of our community remains our top priority. We will continue to engage with protestors to ensure their voices can be heard in a way that does not compromise others' safety or well-being. We are also engaging with other concerned parties to reaffirm our commitment to students and community members of all backgrounds and experiences. I would like to thank Senate Faculty Chair Jack Lipton and Senate Faculty leadership for engaging with student leaders yesterday on this event and supporting the importance of civil discourse, commitment to free speech principles and our collective ability to respect all voices and opinions.

I look forward to seeing many of you throughout today and this weekend as we honor the Class of 2024. Graduation is a time of celebration, and I’m honored to share these ceremonies with our 9,500 graduates, our faculty, staff and university leadership. This ritual represents the culmination of so much hard work and determination and is a joyous time to be on campus. If you haven’t watched or shared the video created by University Communications, I encourage you to start the day on this positive note: Congratulations, MSU Class of 2024!

Please feel free to share this information with your units, departments and teams, as you deem appropriate. Should you have any concerns or wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Kevin M. Guskiewicz 

Professor, Department of Kinesiology 

Office of Admissions

• Self-guided campus tours

MSU is currently offering in-person campus visits that include a guided walking tour. These in-person visit options can be found through our visit page . If you are unable to reserve a spot for a campus visit for any reason, or if you prefer to explore our campus independently, you and your guests are welcome to undertake a self-guided tour.

What you need to know

• Review travel regulations and guidelines before visiting campus.
• The Union is open Monday to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• The Admissions office is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• You can also view and download the self-guided walking tour map as a pdf from the link below.

Self-guided tour map

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Traffic Alert: In Hyattstown, I-270 at MD-109, truck crash with fuel spill under investigation. Follow police direction

College football portal classes: Ole Miss all in, Ohio State shops high end. Prime restocks again

The Associated Press

May 13, 2024, 11:43 AM

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With the spring transfer portal window closed, a look at six college football teams that cleaned up in various ways.

Mississippi

In terms of quantity and quality, Ole Miss killed it. In a Nick Saban-less Southeastern Conference, the Rebels might be the best non-Georgia team in 2024.

The Rebels had good returning pieces at quarterback (Jaxson Dart) and receiver, and then Lane Kiffin went all in behind the Grove Collective to build a contender in the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff.

The jewels of the class are mostly on the defensive side with DT Walter Nolen (Texas A&M), DE Princely Umanmielen (Florida) and LB Chris Paul (Arkansas), plus WR Juice Wells (South Carolina). The Rebels sprinkled in offensive line help via Washington and topped it off with running back (Henry Parrish, Miami) and secondary (Isaiah Hamilton, Houston) depth in the spring.

The Ducks replaced the most experienced quarterback college football has ever had (Bo Nix) with another sixth-year player. Dillon Gabriel (UCF, Oklahoma) might not develop into a first-round draft pick, but he is more than capable of being a quality triggerman for a prolific college offense.

WR Evan Stewart (Texas A&M) is very likely to develop into a first-round draft pick. The Ducks added two good cornerbacks (Jabbar Muhammad, Washington; Kam Alexander, UTSA) and bulked up an already promising defensive line (Jamaree Caldwell, Houston; Derrick Harmon, Michigan State).

Beating Southern California for Harmon and grabbing S Peyton Woodyard (Alabama) in the spring punctuated the transfer class and has the Ducks ready roll into the Big Ten.

In Year 3 under Mario Cristobal, Miami is looking for a breakthrough.

The Hurricanes made a good case as the winners of the spring transfer window by landing all-Pac-12 RB Damien Martinez (Oregon State), WR Sam Brown (Houston), DT Simeon Barrow (Michigan State), LB Jaylin Alderman (Louisville) and CB Dyoni Hill (Marshall).

That came after adding QB Cam Ward (Washington State), who also considered entering the NFL draft, in the winter.

The Buckeyes’ transfer class had just six players, but they shopped at the top of the market.

S Caleb Downs was one of the best defensive players in the country last season as a freshman at Alabama. RB Quinshon Judkins ran for 2,725 yards in two seasons at Mississippi. Will Howard had 48 touchdown passes and 19 TD runs in four seasons at Kansas State. Plus, they added former Alabama starting center Seth McLaughlin and Crimson Tide five-star quarterback signee Julian Sayin.

All that on top of Ohio State’s mountain of returning talent and coach Ryan Day is well positioned to snap a three-game losing streak against Michigan or face the consequences.

New coach Kalen DeBoer’s most notable portal acquisition was a bounce-back from Iowa.

Offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor, a freshman starter last year, left in January for his home-state Hawkeyes. He then changed his mind and returned to Alabama in the spring window.

DeBoer lured four of his former Washington players to the SEC, including talented C Parker Brailsford and WR Germie Bernard.

DT LT Overton (Texas A&M), CB Domani Jackson (USC) and S Keon Sabb (Michigan) are high-ceiling additions to the defense. And to replace star K Will Reichard, the Tide signed Groza Award winner Graham Nicholson from Miami, Ohio.

Deion Sanders is at it again. After bringing in more than 50 transfers last year, Coach Prime has a transfer class of 39 (and possibly counting).

The Buffaloes badly needed to reinforce their lines after tanking a 3-0 start to Sanders’ tenure in Boulder. With that in mind, CU added nine offensive linemen — including Tyler Johnson from Houston and Payton Kirkland from Texas — and 11 defensive linemen — led by B.J. Green from Arizona State and Dayon Hayes from Pittsburgh.

Colorado notably lost RB Dylan Edwards (Kansas State), but brought in a pair of promising ball carriers in Dallan Hayden (Ohio State) and Rashad Amos (Miami, Ohio).

Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP and listen at http://www.appodcasts.com

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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The Michigan Daily

One hundred and thirty-three years of editorial freedom

‘Music from Auschwitz’ debuts before SMTD European tour

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About 30 U-M students and community members gathered at Britton Recital Hall Tuesday night to hear ‘ Music from Auschwitz ,’ a performance of 10 musical pieces composed by Polish political prisoners from the Auschwitz I men’s orchestra. None of the pieces have been performed for an audience since they were played in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp between 1940 and 1945.

Each of the original pieces and arrangements were prefaced by quotes from their composers. Rising Music, Theatre & Dance senior Jack Morin, a vocalist, recited a testimony by Ralph Maria Siegel, a Jewish composer and Auschwitz survivor. The testimony mentioned how prisoners of Auschwitz would perform for the SS, or Schutzstaffel , which were Nazi guards later charged for leading the “Final Solution”, or the mass murder of European Jewish people. 

“‘After our concert for the SS we had a 30-minute break,’” Morin recited. “‘Then we would play for the prisoners in the yard by the camp kitchen. They certainly would have preferred something to eat but almost half of them came to listen, thousands of them.’”

Patricia Hall, professor of music theory at the Music, Theatre & Dance School, first began to bring the work of these composers to life in 2016. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, she said her interest in the manuscripts began when she read about musical scores commissioned by the SS and written by Jewish composers that contained unique instructions on how to play in the likely event that members of the ensemble were murdered.

“I read a book by Simon Laks , who was one of the conductors in Auschwitz,” Hall said. “He talked about this special notation he was forced to use because so many of his ensemble members were suddenly sick or they were dead, and so I became curious if there might be manuscripts in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum .”

From there, Hall said she traveled to Poland and delved into the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, looking to discover more about these orchestrations. 

“I got an appointment, and I went there not expecting to find anything,” Hall said. “Instead, I found literally hundreds of pages of manuscripts that no one had ever studied before, and I was immediately drawn to this one piece, ‘The Most Beautiful Time of Life,’ because I just could not imagine a title like that in Auschwitz. Even though I knew nothing about the music, I decided I just had to realize that piece.”

Pam Oatis, a community member, sat in the audience with her husband, John Kiely. In an interview with The Daily, Oatis said she was moved by the juxtaposition between the harrowing postwar testimonies of the composers and the cheerful nature of the music they had written at that time. 

“I’ll quite honestly say I cried through most of it,” Oatis said. “Just the horror of what humans could do to one another, yet (at the same time) have parties, and how the prisoners would rather have gotten food but thousands came to hear the music. (It shows) there’s something about the therapy of music. I mean, what does music do for us? It lifts us out of horror to joy.”

Hall told The Daily the original goal behind retrieving the manuscripts was to produce recordings for the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum .

“My idea was that we could make a recording for the archive,” Hall said. “So they could actually hear what this ensemble sounded like because there are lots of thoughts about these ensembles … but no one really knows what they sounded like (because) there’s no recordings.”

In an interview with The Daily, Music, Theatre & Dance graduate Margot Cunningham, a viola player in the ‘Music from Auschwitz’ orchestra, said the project eventually expanded to a tour of concerts in 2020 but was halted due to the pandemic.  

“We were actually supposed to do the project back in 2020,” Cunningham said. “We had a US tour and a Europe tour, but because of COVID, the Europe tour got canceled … Then, Professor Hall reached out to us three years later and asked us if we wanted to do the European tour.”

This performance is considered a “launch” concert for the European tour taking place this summer. About 20 Music, Theatre & Dance students and faculty will travel to Vienna, Austria and Kraków to debut music orchestrated by Jewish artists who were local to these cities before being sent to Auschwitz.

Hall said she hoped holding these concerts in the cities the composers were from would greatly impact the members of those communities today. 

“The audience we’re going to perform for is at the Jewish Museum in Vienna, and the Jewish population of Austria was decimated during World War II, (and likewise) when we go to Kraków there will be a similar audience there,” Hall said. “So I think this is going to be very special for them to hear this music.” 

Cunningham said the Music, Theatre & Dance School plans to visit Auschwitz while they tour across Europe, which she hopes will help the musicians connect with the music on a deeper, more emotional level. 

“We’re going to be touring Auschwitz, and seeing where the orchestra played,” Cunningham said. “It’s just gonna be so powerful … I don’t know what it’s gonna feel like, but I’m very grateful to be part of it.”

Daily Staff Reporter Anna Javier can be reached at [email protected] .

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25 arrested at University of Virginia after police clash with pro-Palestinian protesters

Twenty-five people have been arrested for trespassing at the University of Virginia after police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from campus

Twenty-five people were arrested Saturday for trespassing at the University of Virginia after police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from campus, and demonstrators at the University of Michigan chanted anti-war messages and waved flags during commencement ceremonies.

In Virginia, student demonstrators began their protest on a lawn outside the school chapel Tuesday. On Saturday, video from WVAW-TV showed police wearing heavy gear and holding shields lined up on the campus in Charlottesville. Protesters chanted “Free Palestine,” and university police said on the social platform X that an “unlawful assembly” had been declared in the area.

As police moved in, students were pushed to the ground, pulled by their arms and sprayed with a chemical irritant, Laura Goldblatt, an assistant professor of English and global studies who has been helping student demonstrators, told The Washington Post.

“Our concern since this began has been the safety of our students. Students are not safe right now,” Goldblatt said.

The university administration said in a statement that the demonstrators were told the tents and canopies they erected were prohibited under school policy and were asked to remove them. Virginia State Police were asked to help with enforcement, the university said.

It was the latest clash in several tense and sometimes violent weeks at colleges and universities around the country that have seen dozens of protests and hundreds of arrests at demonstrations over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century. Some schools have reached agreements with protesters to end the demonstrations and reduce the possibility of disrupting final exams and commencements.

The Associated Press has recorded at least 61 incidents since April 18 in which arrests were made at protests, with more than 2,400 people being arrested on 47 campuses. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.

Many encampments have been dismantled.

Michigan was among the schools bracing for protests during commencement this weekend, including Indiana University, Ohio State University and Northeastern University in Boston. Many more are slated in the coming weeks.

In Ann Arbor, the protest happened at the beginning of the event at Michigan Stadium. About 75 people, many wearing traditional Arabic kaffiyehs along with their graduation caps, marched up the main aisle toward the graduation stage.

They chanted “Regents, regents, you can’t hide! You are funding genocide!” while holding signs, including one that read: “No universities left in Gaza.”

Overhead, planes flew banners with competing messages. “Divest from Israel now! Free Palestine!” and “We stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.”

Officials said no one was arrested, and the protest didn’t seriously interrupt the nearly two-hour event, which was attended by tens of thousands of people, some of them waving Israeli flags.

State police prevented the demonstrators from reaching the stage and university spokesperson Colleen Mastony said public safety personnel escorted the protesters to the rear of the stadium, where they remained through the conclusion of the event.

“Peaceful protests like this have taken place at U-M commencement ceremonies for decades,” she added.

The university has allowed protesters to set up an encampment on campus, but police assisted in breaking up a large gathering at a graduation-related event Friday night, and one person was arrested.

At Indiana, protesters were urging supporters to wear their kaffiyehs and walk out during remarks by President Pamela Whitten on Saturday evening. The Bloomington campus designated a protest zone outside Memorial Stadium, the arena for the ceremony.

At Princeton, in New Jersey, 18 students launched a hunger strike in an effort to push the university to divest from companies tied to Israel.

One of them, senior David Chmielewski said in an email that the strike started Friday morning with participants consuming water only, and it will continue until administrators meet with students about demands including amnesty from criminal and disciplinary charges for protesters.

Other demonstrators are participating in “solidarity fasts” lasting 24 hours, Chmielewski said.

Princeton students set up a protest encampment and some held a sit-in at an administrative building this week, leading to about 15 arrests.

Students at other colleges, including Brown and Yale, launched similar hunger strikes earlier this year before the more recent wave of encampments.

Meanwhile in Medford, Massachusetts, students at Tufts University peacefully took down their encampment without police intervention Friday night.

School officials said they were pleased with the development, which wasn’t the result of any agreement. Protest organizers said in a statement that they were “deeply angered and disappointed” that negotiations with the university had failed.

The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.

Marcelo reported from New York. Lavoie reported from Richmond, Virginia. Associated Press reporters Ed White in Detroit, Nick Perry in Boston and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed.

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What's the history of 'outside agitators'? Here's what to know about the label and campus protests

Graham Lee Brewer

Associated Press

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

FILE - People gather to protest against the Israel-Hamas war at a plaza at the University of Texas at Dallas, Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Richardson, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

Historically, when students at American universities and colleges protest — from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter — there's a common refrain that “outside agitators” are to blame. College administrators and elected officials have often pointed to community members joining protests to dismiss the demands of student protesters.

Experts say it's a convenient way for officials to delegitimize the motivations of some political movements and justify calling in law enforcement to stop direct actions that are largely nonviolent and engaging in constitutionally protected speech.

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“This tactic shifts focus away from genuine grievances and portray radical movements as orchestrated by opportunistic outsiders," said Shanelle Matthews, a professor of anthropology and interdisciplinary studies at the City University of New York and a former communications director for the Movement for Black Lives.

Over the last few weeks, students on campuses across the country have built encampments, occupied buildings and led protests to call on colleges and universities to divest their endowments from companies profiting from the Israel-Hamas war . Several college and city leaders have pointed to the threat of outsiders when describing the protests — and some have responded by cancelling or shifting plans for commencement ceremonies.

Here's what to know about the phrase “outside agitators” used during historic student movements.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT (1960s-1970s)

Protest movements are typically comprised of local community members and organizers from other parts of the state or country that work together toward a common goal. In the 1960s, state and local officials often focused on this hallmark of community organizing and suggested that civil rights protests were organized by people outside of a given community.

In 1960, a group of Black college students took out a full page ad in Atlanta newspapers called “An Appeal for Human Rights” that expressed solidarity with students everywhere protesting for civil rights. Segregationist politician and then-Georgia Gov. Ernest Vandiver suggested it was created by foreigners and called it a calculated attempt “to breed dissatisfaction, discontent, discord and evil."

“It did not sound like it was prepared in any Georgia school or college; nor in fact did it read like it was written even in this country,” he told the press .

The idea that outside agitators were involved in civil rights protests became so common that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the label in his letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King wrote. “Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Former President Richard Nixon hoped to tie the 1970 shooting deaths of Kent State students by the National Guard to outside agitators, but the FBI was unable to provide such a link. The students had been protesting the Vietnam War.

During the Civil Rights Movement, the label was used as a weapon against community members who spoke up or provided support to protesters and organizers, said Dylan C. Penningroth, an author and historian who teaches law and history at the University of California, Berkeley.

“It delegitimizes internal dissent against the status quo. So anyone who speaks up against the status quo, whatever that is, is by definition an outsider,” he said.

It also ignores the fact that local civil rights organizers often take cues from other protest movements, Penningroth said, and building solidarity with others around the country is often an important part of enacting change.

BLACK LIVES MATTER (2013-present)

Nearly a half-century later, the 2014 killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked widespread protests against police brutality.

Again, outside agitators were frequently invoked and blamed for destruction, looting and the burning of buildings.

The same language was used to describe protests in the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, which resulted in over 10,000 arrests nationwide .

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz suggested that 80% of those who participated in the unrest that followed in Minneapolis were from out of state. But an Associated Press analysis found that 41 of the 52 people cited with protest-related arrests had Minnesota driver’s licenses.

PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTS (2024)

The number of people arrested in connection with protests on college and university campuses against Israel’s war in Gaza has now topped 2,800. The Associated Press has tallied at least 70 incidents on at 54 schools since the protests began at Columbia on April 18.

Official have used outside agitator rhetoric in a handful of examples nationwide. After dozens of students were arrested in May 4 demonstrations at the University of Virginia, a top law enforcement official suggested outsiders had “bull horns to direct the protesters on how to flank our officers.”

“We’re receiving intelligence that outside agitators are starting to get involved in these campus protests,” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares told Fox News on May 6.

In anti-war protests on campuses at Atlanta’s Emory University, Boston’s Northeastern University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, school officials and law enforcement have made inaccurate claims about the presence of non-students.

NYC PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTS (2024)

On April 30, New York City police officers in riot gear entered Columbia University’s campus and cleared an encampment, arresting more than 100 people. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly cited the presence of “outside agitators” to justify the use of police force.

“There is a movement to radicalize young people and I’m not going to wait until it’s done and all of a sudden acknowledge the existence of it,” Adams said at a May 1 news conference.

Pressed for specifics, though, the mayor and police officials have had little to say. Adams has repeatedly said that he decided police intervention was necessary in Columbia’s demonstrations after learning that the husband of one “agitator” was “arrested for federal terrorism.”

But the woman referenced by the mayor wasn’t on Columbia’s campus that week, isn’t among the protesters who were arrested and has not been accused of any crime.

Nahla Al-Arian told The Associated Press she was visiting the city last month and briefly stopped by the campus to see the protest encampment. She also said Adams was mischaracterizing the facts about her husband, a former computer engineering professor who was charged two decades ago with giving illegal support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group in the 1980s and 1990s.

Students involved in the Columbia protests have told The AP it is true that some people not affiliated with the university have been on campus and played an active role in the demonstrations, but they have vehemently denied that those allies were leading or “radicalizing” the students.

“While it's true that people with nefarious intentions crash protests, it's the exception rather than the rule,” Matthews said. “Given that, people should be wary of this narrative.”

AP writers R.J. Rico in Atlanta, Steve LeBlanc in Boston, David B. Caruso in New York and Jim Vertuno in Austin contributed.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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