Columbia University threatens to expel protesters occupying building

NEW YORK: Columbia University officials threatened to expel activists on Tuesday after they seized and occupied an academic building as the standoff between administrators and student protesters intensified.

Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, protesters broke windows and entered Hamilton Hall, where they unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall”, symbolically renaming the building for a six-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.

A university spokesperson said protesters had chosen to escalate an “untenable situation” and that the school’s top priority is the safety and order on campus.

On Monday, Columbia University began suspending pro-Palestinian student activists, including Khalil, for refusing to dismantle the protest camp on the campus after the Ivy League school declared a stalemate in talks seeking to end the demonstration. University President Nemat Minouche Shafik said in a statement that days of negotiations between student organizers and academic leaders had failed to persuade demonstrators to remove the dozens of tents set up to express opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

New York City police officers arrived outside the school gates in unmarked cars moments after the protesters entered the building, the Columbia Spectator newspaper reported.

Students at dozens of campuses from California to New England have set up similar tent encampments to demonstrate their anger over the Israeli operation in Gaza.

At Cal Poly Humboldt University, police early on Tuesday swarmed the campus, where students were occupying a school building, and starting detaining people, local media reported.

Police detained about 30 protesters at their encampment at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill early on Tuesday.

At the University of Texas at Austin, police arrested dozens of students whom they doused with pepper spray at a pro-Palestinian rally on Monday. Protesters also squared off with police at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.