Protesters Take Over Building on Columbia Campus

 

 Protesters Take Over Building on Columbia Campus

The escalation in the protests came after university officials suspended students who had refused to leave a pro-Palestinian encampment. Columbia closed the campus to students who do not live there.

Updated

April 30, 2024, 7:01 a.m. ET20 minutes ago

Eryn Davis, Liset Cruz, Karla Marie Sanford and John YoonReporting from Columbia University

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/30/nyregion/columbia-protests-college

 

Here are the latest developments.

Protesters occupied a building on Columbia’s main campus early Tuesday, escalating tensions at the university after weeks of walkouts, encampments and outdoor gatherings by pro-Palestinian demonstrators that had led to suspensions and more than a hundred arrests.

 

Hamilton Hall, a building with a history of student takeovers, was seized shortly after demonstrators marched around the Manhattan campus to chants of “Free Palestine.” Hours earlier, administrators had begun suspending students who refused to leave an encampment. The university encouraged people not to come to the campus on Tuesday.

 

Similar escalations in pro-Palestinian protests occurred at campuses on the West Coast on Monday night. At California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, the police made arrests as protesters kept Siemens Hall barricaded for more than a week. At Portland State University in Oregon, students took over a library.

 

Here’s what you need to know:

Columbia’s encampment has been in place for nearly two weeks. Many protesters left it on Monday as the university’s deadline for doing so neared. By late afternoon on Monday, there were several dozen students and about 80 tents remaining.

 

Columbia announced that it was closing almost all entrances to its main campus, in Morningside Heights, and that only essential workers and students residing in dorms there would be allowed in.

 

The Columbia student organization behind the encampment, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, said that “an autonomous group” had taken over Hamilton Hall and would remain inside until the university conceded to C.U.A.D.’s demands, which include divestment from companies doing business in Israel.

 

Mike Baker and Jose Quezada contributed reporting.