Pro-Palestinian student protesters have occupied an academic building at Columbia University, according to videos posted on social media.
Footage shows protesters smashing the glass of Hamilton Hall's doors and locking it shut in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
On Monday, the university said that it had started suspending students who defied an ultimatum to leave the pro-Palestinian protest encampment on the campus by a Monday afternoon deadline.
Students at Columbia University have occupied Hamilton hall. Today the university president explicitly said to students the school would not be divesting and threatened to suspend students protesting. The last time this building was taken over by student protesters was in 1968 pic.twitter.com/IhoWVYlocB
— Lama Al-Arian (@lalarian) April 30, 2024
The takeover of Hamilton Hall evoked the famous student protests at Columbia in 1968, when the building was one of several that was occupied during a civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus.
Dozens of protesters had occupied the building early Tuesday, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator, the university's student newspaper. They moved metal gates to barricade doors and blocked the building's entrance with tables and chairs.
They also unfurled a banner renaming the building "Hind's Hall"—for Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was found killed, after reportedly making pleas for help to first responders, during Israel's offensive in Gaza.
"This building has now been liberated," Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the group behind the encampment, wrote in a post on Instagram.
Columbia has urged staff and students to stay away from the campus.
"The safety of every single member of this community is paramount," university spokesperson Ben Chang told Newsweek in an email. "The first step we have taken is to alert our campus community—in light of the protest activity, we have asked members of the University community who can avoid coming to the Morningside campus to do so; essential personnel should report to work according to university policy."
Chang added that access to the campus has been limited to students residing in residential buildings on campus and essential employees.
Newsweek has contacted CUAD for comment via email.
Student protest encampments over the Israel-Hamas war have emerged at many college campuses since more than 100 demonstrators were arrested after Columbia called in police to clear an encampment on the university's main lawn. Universities have sought to clear out the encampments as commencement ceremonies near, but while some have continued negotiations, others have turned to force resulting in clashes with police. The number of arrests nationwide has neared 1,000 since the arrests at Columbia on April 18.
The students are demanding their universities cut financial ties with Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the war in Gaza. It began after Hamas' attack on southern Israel on October 7, when militants killed about 1,200 people and took roughly 250 hostages. In the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, The Associated Press reported, citing the local Health Ministry.
On Monday, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced that negotiations between university officials and student protesters had broken down.
"While the university will not divest from Israel," Shafik said in a statement that it had offered to develop an "expedited timeline for review of new proposals from the students by the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investing."
Later on Monday, student protesters defied the university's 2 p.m. deadline to leave the encampment.
The university issued notices saying that protesters who left by the deadline and signed a form committing to abide by university policies through June 2025 could finish the semester in good standing. Otherwise, they would be suspended, pending further investigation.
Columbia said on Monday evening that it had started to suspend students who did not leave the encampment.
"University representatives engaged in good faith in dialogue with the organizers and maintained that dialogue as long as possible because this reflected our values as a community and an effort to deescalate," Columbia spokesperson Ben Chang said.
"We were hopeful. And we were disappointed when the student protesters could not reach consensus on the issues under discussion."
The school did not call in police to clear the encampment on Monday, but officers arrived outside Columbia's gates in unmarked cars early on Tuesday, the Spectator reported.
An NYPD spokesperson told the newspaper that officers are outside campus, but not entering. Police need the permission from senior university officials to enter campus.
Newsweek has contacted the NYPD for comment via email.
Update 04/30/24, 3:40 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
Update 04/30/24, 8:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from a Columbia University spokesperson.
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Khaleda Rahman is Newsweek's Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, ... Read more
