A brief protest erupted yesterday at Brandeis University in Waltham when school officials began removing a portion of a wall constructed to protest South African apartheid and investments by the school in companies doing business in that country.

The Brandeis students had moved their shantytown from the lawn in front of the student center to a plaza in front of the school's administration building Sunday, and then built a 40-foot-long wood and plastic wall around it late Monday.

School officials, saying the wall blocked handicapped access to the Weinstein-Marcus Administration Center, told grounds workers to remove about 20 feet of the structure.

Some students tried to hold onto the wall as it was taken down and others chanted antiapartheid slogans.

Removing part of the wall "makes clear the university's stance on divestment, and student input in that process," said student Dan Weintraub. "If they are going to use forceful tactics, they set the precedent."

But Brandeis spokesman Mike McDowell said the school had no objections to the shantytown and the wall, as long as they don't get in the way of daily college life.