Columbia University barred access to its campus to all except those living in on-campus dormitories and essential personnel and began suspending student protesters Tuesday while threatening to expel others.
The move came hours after a faction of pro-Palestinian demonstrators took over Hamilton Hall in the overnight hours Tuesday morning, blockading themselves inside with piles of furniture and zip-tying the door handles, the Columbia Spectator reported.
“We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions. Our top priority is restoring safety and order on our campus,” Ben Chang, a spokesperson for the university said. “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.”
Students who’d taken over Hamilton Hall, he added, would face expulsion.
“I don’t think the university should be surprised by an escalation of this nature, particularly as we were played with for 12 days as part of negotiations, not taken seriously,” said Sueda Polat, one of the two student negotiators affiliated with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the coalition of students camping out on the campus lawn.
Polat, a graduate student, described the Hamilton Hall takeover as “an autonomous action by students.”
“Our demands weren’t addressed tangibly, and that causes a lot of anger among the student body,” she said.
‘They Let It Escalate’
Columbia had authorized the NYPD to enter campus and clear the encampment on April 18, the second day students had been camping out, suspending and arresting students for trespassing. That move spurred on protests at other colleges nationwide, while students at Columbia set up camp on an adjacent lawn hours after the first one had been broken down.
Columbia President Minouche Shafik has expressed reluctance to involve the NYPD a second time, while warning of “alternative options” to bring the situation to a rapid conclusion ahead of the fast-approaching commencement season.
Talks between student negotiators and Columbia administrators had ground to a halt Monday, after Shafik stated unequivocally that the university wouldn’t divest from Israel, the students’ central demand.
“While the University will not divest from Israel, the University offered to develop an expedited timeline for review of new proposals from the students by the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing, the body that considers divestment matters,” she wrote in a statement. “The University also offered to publish a process for students to access a list of Columbia’s direct investment holdings, and to increase the frequency of updates to that list of holdings.”
As student demonstrators rejected the offer, the university began distributing paper warnings to demonstrators threatening suspension if they didn’t leave the encampment by 2 p.m. Monday afternoon. Hours later, a group of students forced their way into Hamilton Hall.
“I think they should have taken care of the problem a long time ago and they let it escalate,” said Nico Valencia, a 22-year-old financial economics major slated to graduate next week.
“There’s a lot of students that are for it, but I think there’s a large silent majority of students that are in support of administration and like what we’ve seen on other campuses,” he said, referring to more heavy-handed crackdowns on encampments that have occurred at schools nationwide, including Emory and the University of Texas Austin.
By Tuesday morning, demonstrators had unfurled a hand-painted “Free Palestine” banner from a third story window overlooking Amsterdam Avenue of Hamilton Hall, a building with a long history of student occupations.
Throngs of reporters, barred from entering campus Tuesday morning, milled outside the occupied building, straining to get a look inside from the adjacent Amsterdam Avenue. Some students and faculty denied access to campus on Tuesday walked away frustrated by the shuttering of the dining hall, libraries and gym, in the midst of finals and days before graduation.
Mahmoud Khalil, CUAD’s other student negotiator, said on Tuesday morning he’d received an email notifying him he’d been suspended indefinitely and blocking his access to campus,
Khalil had previously been given assurances from administrators that he would not be disciplined, he said, so he could continue to serve as an intermediary for demonstrators.
“This shows just how random the university is dealing with this,” he told THE CITY. They’re just pushing, scaring students with such suspension.”