COLUMBIA UNIV STUDENTS SEIZE BUILDING, ANTI-WAR PROTESTS ESCALATE
PROTESTERS OCCUPIED HAMILTON HALL, SCENE OF 1968 OCCUPATION AGAINST VIETNAM WAR.
Pro-Palestinian protester on the roof of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University on Tuesday, the day after dozens of students seized the building at midnight. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
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This is a developing report. Check back for additional news.
Students at Columbia University escalated their battle to get the college to divest from Israel by seizing a campus building early Tuesday morning.
Dozens of protesters entered Hamilton Hall minutes after midnight, zip-tying doors shut then barricading them with furniture. Most of the occupiers are students, but witnesses also described seeing people climbing into the building through windows on a side of the building that faces Amsterdam Avenue, a public street.
Hundreds of supporters of the occupiers gathered in front of the building to prevent police and counter-protesters from getting into the building. Inside, protesters hung banners out windows of the six-story building.
"After 206 days of genocide and other 34,000 Palestinians martyrs," a news release said, "Columbia Community members took back Hamilton Hall."
They intend to stay "until Columbia concedes" to "divestment, financial transparency and amnesty," they said.
The communique was published to X, formerly Twitter, by a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Their statement was reposted by the X account associated with the main protest group at the school, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine.
The building was still occupied by protesters at 5:00 pm on Tuesday. One waved a large Palestinian flag from the roof periodically while about 100 supporters protested on the public sidewalk outside the building.
Hamilton Hall is the same Columbia University building seized by students protesting against the Vietnam War in 1968.
"This escalation represents the next generation of the 1968, 1985 and 1992 student movements which Columbia once repressed yet celebrates today," protesters said, referring to not just the anti-war movement but the anti-Apartheid movement.
Pro-Palestinian student protesters have been protesting continuously at Columbia since Apr. 17. That's when they first set up a protest camp on a part of the ivy league university's quad reserved for protests. 108 were arrested the next day, when they refused to leave and Columbia University Pres. Nemat "Minouche" Shafik summoned the NYPD to take them away.
The move backfired. Students set up another camp immediately. It also inspired thousands of students nationwide to set up protest camps in their own colleges. Many, but not all, have been met with truncheon-wielding riot police and mass arrests.
On Monday morning, Pres. Shafik practically dared protesters to do more when she released a news release unequivocally stating "the University will not divest from Israel."
Pres. Shafik added protesters and the university negotiated, but "we were not able to come to an agreement."
Student protesters responded within minutes. One posted a photograph to their X account of printed copies of Pres. Shafik's statement with "COLUMBIA WILL BURN" written by hand in red ink on it.
12 1/2 hours later, protesters seized Hamilton Hall.
Columbia closed its campus on Tuesday. Only dorms were open were students.
Many of the students occupying the campus lawn left on Monday. Out of hundreds, only dozens remained by evening.
The Apr. 18 arrest of 108 students at Columbia was the largest mass arrest of students since 1968, when more than 80 were arrested for occupying Hamilton Hall.
The White House condemned the student takeover.
"Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful–it is wrong," Andrew Bates, a White House assistant press secretary, said in a statement.
Columbia said students guilty of participating in the building occupation would be expelled.
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