Precisely 56 years to the day after the 1968 scholar occupation at Columbia College was violently cleared by the New York Police Division, tons of of cops moved into the Manhattan campus on Tuesday night time to quell a special type of antiwar protest.
Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been arrested as cops entered Columbia’s predominant campus, which was on lockdown, and cleared Hamilton Corridor of a gaggle who had damaged in and occupied it the night time earlier than.
It was a dizzying and, to many college students and college, disturbing 24 hours on campus.
Final time, college students have been protesting the Vietnam Struggle and Columbia’s plans to develop its campus into Harlem. This time, college students have been protesting the Israeli offensive in Gaza that has killed about 34,000 folks, in line with well being officers there, and attempting to pressure the college to divest from firms with ties to Israel.
However the college students’ techniques have been the identical: By escalating their protest to the purpose the place the college was unable to perform, college students compelled the hand of directors, who introduced within the police to arrest them. Each occasions, the scholars had occupied Hamilton Corridor.
The handfuls of arrests on Tuesday have been the fruits of two weeks of intense turmoil on Columbia’s campus.
Tensions over pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been already excessive when Nemat Shafik, the Columbia College president, went to Washington, D.C., to testify earlier than a congressional committee on April 17 about antisemitism on campus. Then, whereas she was in Washington, a gaggle of pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrange a big tent encampment in entrance of Butler Library on the college’s predominant quad to demand that the college divest from Israel.
They labeled the realm their Gaza Solidarity Encampment and declared it a liberated zone, instantly quoting the 1968 protests.
Dr. Shafik, nonetheless in Washington, declared in a letter to the police the following day that these protests have been “a clear and present danger to the substantial functioning of the University,” although by all accounts, the encampment had been nonviolent.
As tons of of scholars and different onlookers watched and rallied in help of the encampment, rows of cops in riot gear entered campus simply after 1 p.m. No less than 108 college students have been arrested. However a number of the tons of of supporters who remained merely moved to the following garden and began a brand new encampment.
Almost two weeks later, on Monday, a faction of the protesters determined to escalate issues additional, after a breakdown in negotiations with Columbia and because the college started to droop college students who had not cleared the encampment by a day deadline.
That night time, the scholar protesters from the encampment, fortified by tons of of different pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had arrived late that night, divided into teams. One group went to Hamilton Corridor.
The coalition organizing the encampment, Columbia College Apartheid Divest, stated the occupiers have been an “autonomous subgroup” made up of “students who felt betrayed by the university and their stubbornness to engage in negotiations,” stated Mahmoud Khalil, a lead negotiator for the scholar coalition.
About 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, protesters smashed a window to realize entry to Hamilton Corridor and piled up barricades to dam the doorways. A crowd of scholars cheered. The protesters unfurled a banner renaming the constructing “Hind’s Hall” in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian woman who was killed in Israel’s battle in opposition to Hamas in Gaza.
About 12 hours handed with the campus in close to full lockdown. Then, at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams held a news conference with prime police officers and stated the police believed that the takeover of the campus constructing was probably the results of steering from “professional outside agitators.”
“We are seeing the tactics changing in a way that is endangering public safety,” stated the police commissioner, Edward Caban. Mayor Adams added that protesters ought to go away earlier than the state of affairs on campus escalated. “This must end now.”
Last Friday, Dr. Shafik had stated it might be counterproductive to convey the police again to campus, given how doing so had solely led to extra protests, each at Columbia and on campuses across the nation. However inside an hour of Mayor Adams’s announcement, giant clusters of cops in riot gear and with plastic handcuffs on their belts started massing outdoors the college gates.
Tons of of officers started getting into the campus simply after 9 p.m. From the dorms above, there have been screams of “Shame on you!”
Contained in the campus gates, the police cut up into two teams. One group encircled the primary encampment on the West Garden, the place greater than 100 tents remained, looking every tent with flashlights. The opposite group headed towards Hamilton Corridor. “Go to dorms or leave the premises,” the police informed bystanders on campus, blocking most from viewing the raid.
Outdoors the campus, cops had pulled a truck alongside Hamilton Corridor and prolonged a ladder to a second-story window. About 9:30 p.m., a column of about 30 officers started crossing the ladder and climbing into the constructing by means of a window.
Inside about 10 minutes, officers introduced the primary scholar to the campus gates, the scholar’s palms certain with plastic ties.
It was unclear what had occurred contained in the constructing, however college students who had been arrested filed away from campus and have been loaded onto buses with out resistance. There have been initial reports of some police violence in opposition to college students simply outdoors the constructing that would not instantly be verified.
By about 10 p.m., the operation was winding down. Officers eliminated banners studying “Student Intifada” and “Free Palestine” that had held on the constructing’s exterior.
Dr. Shafik stated in a statement: “We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions. After the university learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized and blockaded, we were left with no choice.”
She stated that Columbia public security personnel had been compelled out of the constructing throughout the occupation and {that a} member of the college’s amenities workers had been threatened. “We will not risk the safety of our community or the potential for further escalation,” she stated.
The college, she stated, had decided by the morning that this was a legislation enforcement matter, and echoing the police, she stated that she believed “the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university.”
She and police officers didn’t specify who these people have been.
Columbia’s commencement is scheduled for Might 15, and Dr. Shafik has stated she doesn’t need scholar protesters to escalate their actions a 3rd time. To discourage them, she included a further request in her letter to the police on Tuesday asking them to “retain a presence on campus through at least May 17, 2024, to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished.”
Olivia Bensimon, Karla Marie Sanford, Eryn Davis, Maia Coleman, Anna Betts, and Connor Michael Greene contributed reporting.
