The campus was cordoned off, with police erecting barricades.
A heavy police presence was seen at Columbia University on Tuesday, raising fears of a clash with student protesters as administrators struggle to contain pro-Palestinian demonstrations on dozens of campuses across the United States.
The demonstrations – the most widespread and prolonged unrest to rock US college campuses since anti-Vietnam war protests in the 1960s and 1970s – led to several hundred arrests of students and other activists.
Many of them have promised to maintain their actions despite suspensions and threats of expulsion.
On Tuesday night, the campus in the heart of New York City, normally accessible to passersby, was cordoned off, with police erecting barricades, an AFP journalist saw.
Previously, students had vowed to fight any eviction from Hamilton Hall, where protesters had barricaded themselves before dawn.
“We will remain here, drawing on the lessons of our people (in Gaza), who remain where they are and stand firm even in the worst conditions,” a protester wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, who declined to reveal her name, told reporters on the sidelines. out. the saloon.
As she spoke, protesters were seen using ropes to hoist boxes of supplies up to the second floor of the building, apparently signaling that students were hunkering down.
President Joe Biden’s White House sharply criticized the Hamilton Hall seizure, with a spokesperson saying it was “absolutely the wrong approach” as police patrolled street entrances to the prestigious New York University.
“This is not an example of peaceful protest,” the spokesperson added.
Protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, with their high number of Palestinian civilian deaths, have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints that the demonstrations have turned into anti- Semitism and hatred.
The unrest swept through U.S. higher education institutions like wildfire, with many student protesters erecting tent encampments on campuses from coast to coast.
At Columbia, protesters have vowed to remain until their demands are met, including that the school divest all financial holdings linked to Israel.
The university rejected the demand, with President Minouche Shafik saying negotiations with students had failed.
“Students occupying the building face expulsion,” Columbia’s public affairs office said in a statement, adding that protesters were given “the opportunity to leave peacefully” but instead refused and escalated the situation.
The university described in a press update Tuesday that those at the camps and Hamilton Hall “number in the dozens,” while nearly 37,000 attend Columbia.
A national movement
In one of the most recent clashes, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, police moved in on Tuesday to clear an encampment, detaining some protesters in a tense confrontation.
Meanwhile, at Cal Poly Humboldt in Northern California, a weeklong occupation came to a dramatic end Tuesday morning when police intervened to arrest nearly three dozen protesters who had seized buildings and forced the closure of the campus.
In Oregon, Portland State University’s campus was closed Tuesday “due to an ongoing incident” at the library, university officials said, after local media reported that about 50 protesters had stormed the building a day earlier.
And Brown University has reached an agreement under which student protesters will withdraw their camp in exchange for the institution holding a vote on divestment from Israel — a major concession from an elite American university during the protests.
Images of police in riot gear summoned to various colleges were seen around the world.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk expressed concern about the violent measures taken to disperse campus protests, saying “freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society.”
He added that “incitement to violence or hatred based on identity or views – whether real or perceived – must be strongly repudiated.”
Shafik said many Jewish students fled the Columbia campus in fear. “Anti-Semitic language and actions are unacceptable,” she said.
Protest organizers deny accusations of anti-Semitism, arguing that their actions target the Israeli government.
The Columbia student group insisted their protest was peaceful and warned authorities against a crackdown similar to those that crippled the anti-Vietnam War movement.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, which left around 1,170 people dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report using official Israeli data.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed at least 34,535 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-administered territory.
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