Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters arrested after Columbia calls in police | Columbia College

The New York police division on Wednesday arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian activists who occupied a part of the primary library constructing on Columbia College’s campus on Wednesday night, ending an hours-long standoff almost a yr after scholar anti-war protest swept the Ivy League faculty.

Claire Shipman, the college’s performing president, mentioned in an announcement that she requested officers with the NYPD to assist clear the constructing, after protesters had refused to go away regardless of being warned {that a} failure to conform would end in disciplinary motion and probably arrest for trespassing. A spokesperson for the NYPD mentioned officers arrested “a number of people” who refused to disperse.

Video posted on-line by the scholar activist group Columbia College Apartheid Divest (CUAD) confirmed NYPD officers in riot gear coming into the Butler library studying room, as protesters locked arms and chanted: “We have now nothing to lose however our chains!”

On Wednesday afternoon, masked protesters, many sporting the black-and-white checkered keffiyeh that has lengthy been a logo of Palestinian liberation, took over the primary room on the second ground of Columbia’s Butler library, in keeping with photographs shared on social media by CUAD.

Renaming the area “the Basel Al-Araj Common College”, some activists stood on desks with bullhorns, whereas others hung an indication that learn “strike for Gaza” and distributed pamphlets calling on the college to “divest” from funds and companies that activists say are benefiting from Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

“We won’t be ineffective intellectuals,” protesters mentioned in an announcement shared on-line. “Palestine is our compass, and we stand robust within the face of violent oppression.”

The college first despatched in campus public security officers, who warned the activists that they’d face disciplinary motion and probably arrest in the event that they refused to go away. The protesters mentioned they refused to point out their IDs and described a bodily confrontation between them and the safety officers. The college mentioned two public security officers had been injured, whereas protesters reported being “kettled” and locked inside.

“Requesting the presence of the NYPD is just not the result we wished, but it surely was completely essential to safe the security of our group,” Shipman mentioned in an announcement, calling the protester’s actions “outrageous”.

At 6pm EST, college students obtained an alert saying the library was closed and the realm “have to be cleared”.

In an interview with a neighborhood NBC affiliate on Wednesday night, the New York mayor Eric Adams referred to as the protest “unacceptable”. In a later assertion, the mayor mentioned he had obtained a “written request” from the college for police backup.

The New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, mentioned she had been briefed on the scenario and was “grateful to public security officers for holding college students protected”.

“Everybody has the best to peacefully protest. However violence, vandalism or destruction of property are fully unacceptable,” she mentioned in an announcement.

The standoff comes at a fragile second for the college, because it faces a crackdown by the Trump administration over its response to scholar protests towards the warfare in Gaza final spring. The administration has accused the college of failing to guard Jewish college students from antisemitism on campus and canceled $400m in federal analysis funding from the varsity.

On Tuesday, the college introduced a spherical of layoffs because of the cuts. College officers mentioned they had been working with the Trump administration within the hopes of getting the funding restored.

Final spring, protesters arrange an encampment and seized Hamilton Corridor, a campus constructing, which led to dozens of arrests and impressed comparable demonstrations at universities throughout the nation.

Since then, the college has undergone a sequence of management adjustments. In March, the interim president of Columbia stepped down after agreeing to just about all the Trump administration’s sweeping calls for – a call that outraged college and critics who mentioned the college had sacrificed its independence and educational freedom.