New York, United States — Demonstrators at Columbia University barricaded themselves inside a campus building on Tuesday, escalating a standoff with school officials as pro-Palestinian protests upend colleges across the United States.
Masked individuals smashed windows and blocked doors with metal tables in the early hours of the morning after administrators began suspending protesting students for failing to comply with an order to disperse.
President Joe Biden’s White House sharply criticized the seizure of the building, with a spokesman saying it was “absolutely the wrong approach” as police patrolled street entrances to the prestigious New York university.
“That is not an example of peaceful protest,” the spokesman added.
Demonstrators vowed to remain at the hall until their demands are met, including that Columbia divest all financial holdings linked to Israel.
The school has rejected the demand, with university president Minouche Shafik saying talks with students had collapsed.
Protests have swept through US higher education institutions, with many erecting tent encampments on campus grounds after around 100 protesters were first arrested at Columbia on April 18.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, police moved in Tuesday morning to clear one encampment, detaining some protesters.
TV footage showed police at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond on Monday evening pushing and shoving away protesters, with students saying teargas and pepper spray was deployed.
At the University of Texas at Austin, police also clashed with protesters Monday, including using pepper spray, and made arrests while dismantling an encampment, adding to hundreds detained nationwide over the weekend.
Free speech?
Protests against the Gaza war, with its high Palestinian civilian death toll, have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and hate.
Footage of police in riot gear summoned at various colleges has been viewed around the world, recalling the protest movement that erupted during the Vietnam War.
On Tuesday, access to Columbia was restricted to residential students and essential staff.
“After 206 days of genocide and over 34,000 Palestinian martyrs, Columbia community members took back Hamilton Hall just after midnight,” a student group said in a statement citing Israel’s war in Gaza.
It said the group had renamed the building “Hind’s Hall” in honor of a six-year-old Gazan girl killed by Israel during its ongoing offensive against Hamas.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk voiced concern at the heavy-handed steps taken to disperse the campus protests, saying that “freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society.”
He added that “incitement to violence or hatred on grounds of identity or viewpoints — whether real or assumed — must be strongly repudiated.”
Shafik, in her statement on Monday, said that many Jewish students had fled Columbia’s campus in fear. “Anti-Semitic language and actions are unacceptable,” she said.
Protest organizers deny accusations of anti-Semitism, arguing their actions are aimed at Israel’s government and its prosecution of the conflict in Gaza. They also insist non-student agitators have engineered some of the incidents.
With the school year wrapping up, administrators point to the need to maintain order on campus for exam studies.
One graduate student protester, who asked to be identified only as “Z,” told AFP: “It’s finals week, everyone is still working on their finals. But at the end of the day, school is temporary.”