Yesterday, around 100 protesters at Columbia University established the Basel Al-Araj Popular University on the second floor of the Butler Library. The protesters denounced Columbia’s support of the genocide in Gaza, continuing the call for Columbia to divest from the state of Israel and for the university to boycott all complicit institutions (including the Tel Aviv Global Center). They also demanded that cops and ICE stay off campus, an end to “Columbia’s occupation of Harlem; return land to Harlemites and open the gates,” and amnesty for all students, staff, and faculty “targeted by Columbia University’s discipline.” In choosing Butler library as the site of the action, the students called attention to former university president Nicholas Murray Butler’s support for nazism and the university’s history of propping up genocide.
Shortly after, Columbia’s public safety officers closed all exits and trapped protesters inside the library to contain the protest. They demanded that those present show their student IDs before the officers would let them leave, threatening to arrest everyone who refused to do so. Students across campus quickly mobilized to rally outside the library in support of the protesters. Inside, the campus cops started brutalizing students, dragging them across the floor, choking, and beating them. They locked the doors to the library with handcuffs to prevent anyone from leaving or joining the protest.
University president Claire Shipman called in the NYPD Strategic Response Group — the heavily-armed riot cops that led the violent repression of student occupations at Columbia last year. NYPD unleashed brutal repression against the students; a Palestinian student was slammed to the ground, choked, and left with a severe head injury. Two people left the premises in a stretcher and multiple students were hospitalized. Police arrested at least 79 protesters.
Police blocked the university’s entrances with barricades. They chased and grabbed protesters who attempted to run. Several groups, including Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and Within Our Lifetime (WOL) called people to mobilize outside the university to support the protesters. Students locked arms and blocked the end of the 114th street to prevent the NYPD bus from exiting with arrestees. As of today, all protesters have been released from police custody.
This repression comes in the context of an all-out assault in Gaza, where Israel is using famine as a weapon. Israel has been preventing food and other aid from entering Gaza for more than 70 days. Their plan is to occupy the entire strip and displace all those living there. But this offensive is not limited to Gaza. In the north of the West Bank, Israel is displacing Palestinians and destroying camps including the Nus Shams and Tulkarm camps.
Against this backdrop, Columbia is covering for the Trump administration and using repression to prevent a resurgence of student protests as the genocide in Gaza escalates. Columbia has repeatedly collaborated with law enforcement and the Trump administration to arrest and repress pro-Palestine activists, like Mahmoud Khalil, who is still in ICE custody in Louisiana. In the context of an increased offensive towards immigrants, Marco Rubio has already promised to check the immigration status of the Butler Library protesters. In an X post, the Secretary of State wrote “Pro-Hamas thugs are not welcome in our great nation.”
This is the largest mass arrest on Columbia’s campus since the occupation of Hind’s Hall last year. It came just one day before campus security and the NYPD brutally attacked a student protest at Brooklyn College. This repression cannot stand unchallenged, nor any of the attempts to reprimand the students involved that may follow. The fight against repression and to defend free speech and the right to protest is essential to continue fighting for divestment and Palestinian liberation as the Trump administration continues U.S. aid to Israel and its genocide. It’s time for the working class to use its strategic power to unite with students to fight, not only against Columbia’s administration, but against the Trump regime that is preparing the way for continued attacks on our movements and on the working class. Uniting our struggles, the working class and students together can fight the attacks of the Far Right and its support for genocide. Down with the repression! Cops and ICE off university campuses! Release and reinstate all those target for protesting the genocide! Free Palestine!