NEW YORK — Columbia University is threatening to expel pro-Palestinian students who charged a campus building early Tuesday morning and continued to occupy it throughout the day.
“Protesters have chosen to escalate to an untenable situation — vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, and blockading entrances — and we are following through with the consequences we outlined yesterday,” Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang said in a statement. “Students occupying the building face expulsion.”
The announcement comes about 13 hours after dozens of protesters stormed Hamilton Hall, an academic building housing several humanities classrooms as well as the offices of undergraduate admissions and of the dean of Columbia College. Demonstrators barricaded the doors with furniture and vowed to stay put until the university meets their demands as hundreds more formed a human chain in front of the building.
The students occupying the building are an “autonomous group” whose asks match those of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the organization behind the school’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, according to a CUAD release. Those requests include full university divestment from Israel, disclosure of all financial holdings and amnesty for student protesters.
Negotiations between demonstrators and university officials had stalled, Columbia President Minouche Shafik said Monday. She affirmed that the institution “will not divest from Israel.”
Tuesday is the first day of Columbia’s annual “reading week,” a period of 24/7 quiet hours in the leadup to finals. The university — which has limited access past its gates to students who reside in residential buildings on campus and essential personnel — has since closed its libraries, sweeping students out floor by floor. Dining halls are now only open to students who live on campus.
A group of protesters were seen chanting in support of Palestine Tuesday morning outside Columbia’s gates on 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the tent encampment remained on campus with about 80 tents and protesters were still on lockdown in Hamilton Hall, which they renamed “Hind’s Hall” to honor a Palestinian child killed in Gaza by Israeli bombardment. The New York Police Department has not entered campus since April 18, when officers arrested over 100 protesters.
The university began suspending students who did not leave the encampment on Monday afternoon. Students and faculty members picketed around the encampment to prevent officials from handing out suspension slips.
Those suspended students — the number of which a spokesperson has declined to specify — are now barred from accessing academic and recreational spaces and can only access their dorms. Seniors are ineligible to graduate.
The administration insisted it is taking disciplinary measures against students because they repeatedly violated university policies.
“This is about responding to the actions of the protesters, not their cause,” Chang said. “As we said yesterday, disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with teaching, learning, and preparing for final exams.”
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