Dartmouth’s Leader Called in Police Quickly. The Fallout Was Just as Swift.

As the police arrested student protesters at Dartmouth College, a 65-year-old professor ended up on the ground.

Two student journalists, reporting that night, ended up arrested themselves.

And a bystander, visiting his father who lives near Dartmouth College, found himself with a fractured shoulder.

That was some of the collateral damage after the president of Dartmouth College, Sian Leah Beilock, took unusually swift action and authorized the police action on May 1 to clear an encampment that students had, just two hours earlier, pitched on the college green.

Dr. Beilock, a cognitive scientist who studies why people choke under pressure, has been facing a campus uproar ever since.

Presidents have faced a platter of unappealing choices in handling the student encampments, which have recently popped up all over the country, to protest Israel’s war in Gaza.

A few colleges, like Northwestern University, struck agreements with their student protesters, and found themselves criticized for being too lenient. Others, like Wesleyan University, said protesters would face discipline but that officials would not use force to clear the tents if students remained nonviolent.