I don't know about the school president telling them what to do. There was a reason they were called in. At that point they are the ones on the ground in the situation and they need to be the ones that determine the course of action. The president was probably sitting in their cushy office giving orders without real time information coming in. I understand cops have overreacted many times before but I have to believe these officers knew they were possibly in a volatile situation with a hundred cell phone cameras pointed at them and they acted in a way they thought was appropriate.

The issue was never that they were there protesting. It was that they were purposefully blocking the walkway refusing to move. They could have sat the same way on the grass lining the walkway with their arms linked protesting.