NEW YORK (AP) — Pro-Palestinian protesters wearing masks clashed with security guards Wednesday after staging a protest inside Columbia University's main library.
Videos and photos shared on social media showed dozens of protesters pushing past campus security officers and racing into the building. The group then hung Palestinian flags and other banners on bookshelves in an ornate reading room. Some also appeared to have scrawled “Columbia will burn†.
Other videos showed campus security officers barring another group of protesters from entering the library, with both sides shoving to try and force the other group aside.
The university's president, Claire Shipman, said in Wednesday evening that the protesters who had holed up inside a library reading room were asked repeatedly to show identification and to leave, but they refused. The school then requested the NYPD come in “to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community,†she said.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams officers were entering the campus “to remove individuals who are trespassing.â€
Following by the Trump administration to its federal funding, Columbia in March sweeping policy changes.
Among them are a ban on students wearing masks to conceal their identities and a rule that those protesting on campus must present their identification when asked. The school also said it had hired new public safety officers empowered to make arrests on campus.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian student group, said it had occupied part of Butler Library because it believed the university profited from “imperialist violence.â€
“Repression breeds resistance — if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus," the group wrote online.
