NYC University Suspends More Than 65 Students After Pro-Palestine Protest

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — Columbia University has suspended more than 65 students following Wednesday night's protest in the Butler Library, which ended in 80 arrests and left two campus safety officers injured, a university official told Patch Friday.

First reported by Bloomberg, the students are on an interim suspension while an investigation is underway, and a total of 33 students from affiliated schools have been barred from the Morningside Heights campus.

Alumni at the protest were also barred from campus, the university official said.

The suspensions are in reaction to a group of pro-Palestine activists occupying the school's main library on Wednesday afternoon. Among those arrested, 78 protestors were issued desk summonses, and two were issued court appearances, NYPD officials said Thursday.

The protest started around 3 p.m. when protestors entered the library, pushing past security, many of them wearing keffiyehs and masks, according to several videos posted to social media.

"Let me be clear: Columbia unequivocally rejects antisemitism and all other forms of harassment and discrimination," Columbia's Acting President Claire Shipman wrote in a statement, detailing an afternoon of chaos that she said left two Public Safety officers injured during the protest. She said one was wheeled out on a gurney.

"And we certainly reject a group of students—and we don’t yet know whether there were outsiders involved—closing down a library in the middle of the week before finals and forcing 900 students out of their study spaces, many leaving belongings behind."

Student activist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest said more than 100 protestors were in attendance.

"Columbia University is not a paragon of higher education; it is and has always been a neocolonial institution, prioritizing the acquisition of property and investments in war," the group wrote, criticizing Columbia for allowing federal immigration agents on campus, which led to the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian Columbia graduate student and legal permanent U.S. resident.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the visas of the protestors are all now under review, calling them "Pro-Hamas thugs."

For questions and tips, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.