The New York police department on Wednesday arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian activists who occupied part of the main library building on Columbia University’s campus on Wednesday evening, ending an hours-long standoff nearly a year after student anti-war protest swept the Ivy League school.
Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said in a statement that she requested officers with the NYPD to help clear the building, after protesters had refused to leave despite being warned that a failure to comply would result in disciplinary action and possibly arrest for trespassing. A spokesperson for the NYPD said officers arrested “multiple individuals” who refused to disperse.
Video posted online by the student activist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) showed NYPD officers in riot gear entering the Butler library reading room, as protesters locked arms and chanted: “We have nothing to lose but our chains!”