New York City police raided Columbia University on Wednesday to arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom had seized an academic building, and to remove a protest encampment the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.
Within three hours the campus had been cleared of protesters, said a police spokesperson, adding “dozens” of arrests were made.
At the start of the raid throngs of helmeted police marched onto the elite campus in upper Manhattan, a focal point of student rallies that have spread to dozens of schools across the US in recent days expressing opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.
NYPD officers arrest a student at Columbia University in New York City on April 30, 2024. Source: Getty / Timothy A. Clary
‘Shame, shame’
Soon after, a long line of officers climbed into Hamilton Hall, an academic building that protesters had broken into and occupied in the early morning hours of Tuesday. Police entered through a second-story window, using a police vehicle equipped with a ladder.
Police were seen loading dozens of detainees onto a bus, each with their hands bound behind their backs by zip-ties, the entire scene illuminated with flashing red and blue lights of police vehicles.
“Free, free, free Palestine,” chanted protesters outside the building. Others yelled “Let the students go.”
“Columbia will be proud of these students in five years,” said Sweda Polat, one of the student negotiators for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the coalition of student groups that has organised the protests.
She said students did not pose a danger and called on police to back down, speaking as officers shouted at her and others to retreat or leave campus.
At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by “outside agitators” who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness. Source: Getty / Kena Betancur
What did the protesters demand?
Protesters were seeking three demands from Columbia:
- Divestment from companies supporting Israel’s government
- Greater transparency in university finances
- Amnesty for students and faculty disciplined over the protests
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik this week said Columbia would not divest from finances in Israel.
Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia’s direct investment holdings more transparent.
In a letter released on Wednesday, Shafik said the Hamilton Hall occupiers had vandalised University property and were trespassing, and that encampment protesters were suspended for trespassing. The university earlier warned that students taking part in the Hamilton Hall occupation faced academic expulsion.
The occupation began overnight when protesters broke windows, stormed inside and unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall,” saying they were renaming the building for a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.
The eight-story, neo-classical building has been the site of various student occupations dating back to the 1960s.
