Columbia University threatens to expel student protesters who occupied building

Dozens of protesters have taken over a building at Columbia University in New York, barricading the entrances and unfurling a Palestinian flag out of a window in the latest escalation of demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war that have spread to college campuses across the US.

The school has promised they would face expulsion.

The occupation at Columbia – where protesters shrugged off an ultimatum to abandon a tent encampment on Monday or be suspended – unfolded as other universities stepped up efforts to clear out encampments.

Police swept through some campuses, spurring confrontations with protesters and plenty of arrests. In rarer instances, university officials and protest leaders have struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life.

And as ceasefire negotiations appeared to gain steam on Tuesday, it was not clear whether those talks would inspire campus protesters to ease their efforts.

Protesters on Columbia’s Manhattan campus locked arms in front of Hamilton Hall on Tuesday and carried furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus, video footage showed.

The takeover occurred nearly 12 hours after Monday’s 2pm deadline for the protesters to leave an encampment of around 120 tents or face suspension.

In a statement on Tuesday, Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang said: “Students occupying the building face expulsion.”

He said those who did not agree to the terms from Monday were being suspended.

“Protesters have chosen to escalate to an untenable situation – vandalising property, breaking doors and windows, and blockading entrances – and we are following through with the consequences we outlined yesterday,” he said.

The public safety department said in a statement that access to the campus was limited to students living in the residential buildings and essential employees, and that their safety “is paramount”. There was just one access point into and out of campus.

New York Police Department chief Jeffrey Maddrey, speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, said police will not enter Columbia’s campus without a request from the college administration or an imminent emergency.

Protesters insisted they will remain at the hall until the university agrees to three demands: divestment, financial transparency and amnesty.

At many campuses, including Columbia, the conflict over protests appeared to be coming to a head.

The stand-offs have drawn concern from the White House. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said President Joe Biden believes students occupying an academic building is “absolutely the wrong approach”, and “not an example of peaceful protest”.

The office of the UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, meanwhile, expressed concern about “heavy-handed steps” taken to dismantle protests on US campuses, while stressing that antisemitic, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian comments were “totally unacceptable and deeply disturbing”.

At California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where protesters have occupied two buildings, dozens of police officers in helmets and carrying batons marched onto campus early Tuesday and cleared both halls. The university said 25 people were arrested and there were no injuries.

The university earlier announced a “hard closure”, meaning that people were not allowed on campus without authorisation. The university posted a shelter-in-place order on its website at 3.24am. The order was lifted several hours later, but residents were warned to stay in living, dining and market areas.

At Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, police and demonstrators clashed on Monday night as officers took down tents, charged the line of demonstrators, deployed chemical agents to disperse the crowd, and made arrests, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Some protesters hurled water bottles and other objects at police.

Yale authorities on Tuesday morning cleared an encampment after protesters heeded final warnings to leave, university officials said. No arrests were reported.

Demonstrators said on social media that they were moving their gathering to a pavement area. The encampment was set up on Sunday, six days after police arrested nearly 50 people, including 44 students, and took down dozens of tents.

Dozens of people were arrested on Monday during protests at universities in Texas, Utah, Virginia and New Jersey, while Columbia said hours before the takeover of Hamilton Hall that it had started suspending students.

At the University of Texas at Austin, 79 people involved in the Monday protest were jailed, according to the Travis County sheriff’s department, most charged with criminal trespass.

A small group of students at Portland State University in Oregon broke into the university’s library late Monday, drawing a sharp rebuke from city officials and the district attorney. The downtown campus, where protesters had been demonstrating mostly peacefully, was closed on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, police cleared an encampment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and detained about 30 people. At the University of Connecticut, police made arrests after protesters refused to remove tents.

The nationwide campus protests began as a response by some students to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents.

Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organisers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting against the war.

In a rare case, Northwestern University said it reached an agreement with students and faculty who represent the majority of protesters on its campus near Chicago. It allows peaceful demonstrations through to the end of spring classes in exchange for some concessions.

At the University of Southern California (USC), organisers of a large encampment sat down with university president Carol Folt for about 90 minutes on Monday. Ms Folt declined to discuss details but said talks would continue on Tuesday.

USC officials this month refused to allow the valedictorian, who has publicly supported Palestinians, to make a commencement speech, citing nonspecific security concerns. Administrators then scrapped the keynote speech by filmmaker and alumnus Jon M Chu and declined to award honorary degrees.