Students are being kicked out of their dorms and are upset/rioting due to this sudden eviction. Why on earth would your immediate suspicion be to accuse students of rioting because of missed potential parties?
And the kids on the street generally look like entitled middle-class white kids causing a disturbance, which reminded me of my own days at the University of Dayton.
EDIT: Perhaps they're being pressured by the administration but the Twitter account for the student newspaper says it was not a protest, and that "students were treating it as a potential last party of the semester".
I do empathize with the minority of folks for whom this represents a real challenge.
But having been enrolled at this particular university not all that long ago, my experience is that the vast majority of these young people are members of families that are fairly well-off - they were able to send their kids to a private university (with a reputation as a party school).