Mounted police and others clad in riot gear have bulldozed into student protesters at a Texas university, while new encampments sprout at Harvard and other colleges in part of a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.

In further wild scenes in recent days, activists say tasers and tear gas have been used against student protesters at Atlanta’s Emory University.

At Columbia University in New York, the epicentre of the US protest movement, university officials are locked in a stalemate with students over the removal of a tent encampment set up two weeks ago as a protest against the Israeli offensive.

As universities struggle to defuse unrest on campuses from coast to coast, some have quickly turned to law enforcement, including the University of Texas at Austin.

Hundreds of police shoved into protesters to get them off the main campus lawn on Wednesday (local time), sending some tumbling into the street.

At least 20 demonstrators were taken into custody.

On the west coast, police responding to a demonstration at the University of Southern California got into a back-and-forth tugging match with protesters over tents.

At Emory, video footage aired on FOX 5 Atlanta showed a melee between officers and some protesters, with officers using what appeared to be a stun gun to subdue one person and others wrestling protesters to the ground and leading them away.

“Several dozen protesters trespassed into Emory University’s campus early Thursday morning and set up tents,” the school wrote in response to an emailed request for comment.

There were other demonstrations at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and California State Polytechnic in Humboldt.

Across US universities, there have been more than 530 arrests in the past week in relation to protests over Gaza, a Reuters tally found.

Harvard University in Massachusetts had sought to stay ahead of protests this week by limiting access to Harvard Yard and requiring permission for tents and tables.

That did not stop protesters from setting up a camp with 14 tents on Wednesday following a rally against the university’s suspension of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Students protesting about the Israel-Hamas war are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies enabling its months-long conflict.

Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into anti-Semitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus, partly prompting a heavier hand from universities.

At New York University this week, police said 133 protesters were taken into custody, while more than 40 were arrested at an encampment at Yale University on Monday.

Columbia University averted another confrontation between students and police on Wednesday.

University president Minouche Shafik had set a Tuesday midnight deadline for an agreement to clear an encampment, but the school extended negotiations for another 48 hours.

On a visit to campus on Wednesday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, called on Shafik to resign “if she cannot bring order to this chaos”.

Johnson faced at-times vulgar heckling and booing while speaking outside the university library. He called on violent protesters to be arrested and threatened to cut off federal funding to universities that failed to impose order.

Police first tried to clear the encampment at Columbia last week, when they arrested more than 100 protesters.

The move backfired, acting as an inspiration for other students across the country to set up similar encampments and motivating Columbia protesters to regroup.

On Wednesday about 60 tents remained at Columbia, which appeared calm, and security remained tight around campus.

The administration has now given protesters until Friday to strike a deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in a video statement, saying the response of several university presidents had been “shameful” and calling on state, local and federal officials to intervene.

-with AAP