Columbia suspends lead student negotiator as anti-war protests intensify: Live updates

NEW YORK − Columbia University severely restricted access to campus Tuesday and began suspending students involved in the Gaza war protests while demonstators seized an academic building and blocked the entrance with a human chain.

Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student and lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest in talks with the administration, returned to campus Tuesday morning to find he was suspended and his ID card blocked. Negotiations ended without an agreement Monday.

“This goes against the norms, I was not a part of this encampment,” Khalil told USA TODAY, standing outside campus gates. ““Yet again, this shows the randomness and the arbitrary measures the university is taking against students.”

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The academic building, Hamilton Hall, is a short walk from where demonstrators protesting Israel’s war in Gaza have occupied an encampment that for two weeks has been the epicenter for campus protests nationwide. Shortly after 12:30 a.m., students broke into the building and barricaded themselves with wooden chairs, metal tables and trashcans.

People wait outside of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall in New York amid ongoing protests on April 30, 2024.

“An autonomous group of students reclaimed the building as ‘Hind’s Hall’ in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old girl from Gaza,” Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said in a social media post. “We continue to stand in solidarity with Palestinian Liberation.”

The demonstrators released people, including workers, who were inside at the time of the takeover. A “Hind’s Hall” banner flew from one window and “Free Palestine” from another as supporters linked arms to form a line protecting the entrance while others demonstrated, leading chants in support of Gaza and divesting from Israel.

“Effective immediately, access to the (main) campus has been limited to students residing in residential buildings on campus … and employees who provide essential services to campus buildings, labs and residential student life,” the school said in a statement. “The safety of every single member of this community is paramount.”

Columbia protesters demand the school halt investments with companies profiting from Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and they want amnesty for students and faculty involved in the protest. College campus demonstrations have been fueled by the civilian toll in Gaza, where more than 34,000 people have died since the Israeli invasion that followed a Hamas-led attack that killed almost 1,200 people in Israel.

Developments:

∎ Seventy-nine people were arrested in connection with a protest at the University of Texas, the Travis County sheriff’s office said Tuesday. Seventy-eight of those arrested were charged with criminal trespass, and one person received an additional charge of obstructing a highway or passagewa.

∎ Officials at Portland State University in Oregon closed the campus Tuesday citing an “ongoing incident at library.” The school asked police to help remove dozens of protesters occupying the building. Last week the university paused seeking or accepting gifts or grants from Boeing pending a review of weapons sales to Israel.

∎ Dozens of protesters at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill were detained Tuesday as police began breaking down the “Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment” after school officials demanded protesters remove the tents and leave the area.

White House denounces protest occupations

The White House on Tuesday condemned the surge in protests that seize and occupy university buildings. White House spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration was monitoring the escalating protests on U.S. campuses. “The president believes that forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach. That is not an example of peaceful protests,” Kirby said at a briefing.

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement that Biden has always condemned “repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric,” adding that Biden respects freedom of expression but believes protests must be lawful. “Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful, it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America,” Bates said.

Education secretary: ‘What’s happening on our campuses is abhorrent’

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, speaking at a Senate budget hearing Tuesday morning, condemned reports of antisemitic incidents on college campuses and pointed to his agency’s pending civil rights investigation into the Manhattan university. “What’s happening on our campuses is abhorrent,” he said. “Hate has no place on our campuses and I’m very concerned with the reports of antisemitism.”

Cardona said the Education Department has more than 100 pending civil rights probes investigating allegations of discrimination, including antisemitic and anti-Muslim harassment.

Columbia, like many schools, will likely settle its civil rights case with the department. In recent days, Republican lawmakers have floated the idea of pulling the university’s federal funding for failing to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws. Experts say that’s highly unlikely.

− Zachary Schermele

35 arrested at Northern California university

California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, said Tuesday that its campus will be closed until May 10 as law enforcement began “a series of actions to restore order.” Two buildings were cleared and secured and 35 people arrested, the school said in a statement. Protesters for more than a week had occupied Siemans Hall, an administrative building that includes the president’s office, renaming it “Intifada Hall.” The school dismissed freedom of expressions claims of the protesters, calling their actions “criminal activity.”

“This is a difficult day, it breaks my heart to see it, and truly nobody wanted to see things come to this,” school president Tom Jackson said.

The statement said the schol made repeated efforts to resolve the situation and that “this morning’s enforcement action was determined to be necessary to restore order and to address the lawlessness and dangerous conditions that had developed.”

In Lebanon, solidarity with US students

Hundreds of students gathered Tuesday at university campuses across Lebanon to protest Israel’s war, which participants said were inspired by U.S. protests. Students, alumni and other Lebanese gathered at campuses in the capital Beirut and elsewhere waved Palestinian flags and posters demanding their universities boycott companies that do business in Israel.

Rayyan Kilani, 21, who is graduating this semester from the American University of Beirut, said students had decided it was worth risking their degrees to show support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

“Looking at the Palestinians in Gaza and students in Gaza that lost their universities, their lives and their families, a degree would not matter to us as much as a liberated Palestine,” she said.

Jewish leaders call for more aggressive action against antisemitism

Jewish leaders on Monday urged Columbia officials to take stronger action against antisemitism on campuses. Kraft Center for Jewish Life hosted a Friday press conference featuring Columbia/Barnard Hillel Lavine Family executive director Brian Cohen, joined by other advocacy group leaders and students from Columbia, Brown University and Rutgers University. Cohen said it was “sobering and disappointing” that the events of recent days necessitated the leaders to speak out.

“The situation we are seeing on our campus and dozens of other campuses around the country stem from decades of decisions by administrators that have slowly eroded campus climate,” Cohen said. He said students have a right to protest and to say things he does not agree with. But he urged schools to “uphold your codes of coduct, enforce your rules and hold students who violate them responsible in real and consequential ways.”

Police dismantle encampment at University of Utah

Police dismantled an encampment and dispersed protesters at the University of Utah late Monday after a rally that drew more than 300 people outside an administration building at the campus in Salt Lake City. Officers removed and dismantled about a dozen tents, stashes of water bottles, food and toilet paper as some protesters took down their own tents and drove away, the school said in a statement.

“Utah college campuses around the state are not exempt from the significant unrest that currently exists in our country and world,” said Keith Squires, the school’s chief safety officer. “Campuses serve as a stage and forum for not just students, but for members of the community who want their voice to be heard. We honor all voices, but the right to speech on our campus must occur within the confines of state law and campus policies.”

Columbia suspends protesting students: Demonstrators take over university building

What are college protests across the US about?

The student protesters opposed to Israel’s military attacks in Gaza say they want their schools to stop funneling endowment money to Israeli companies and other businesses, like weapons manufacturers, that profit from the war in Gaza. In addition to divestment, protesters are calling for a cease-fire, and student governments at some colleges have also passed resolutions in recent weeks calling for an end to academic partnerships with Israel. The protesters also want the U.S. to stop supplying funding and weapons to the war effort.

More recently, amnesty for students and professors involved in the protests has become an issue. Protesters want protections amid threats of disciplinary action and termination for those participating in demonstrations that violate campus policy or local laws.

− Claire Thornton

Contributing: Skye Seipp, Austin American-Statesman; Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Columbia suspends lead student negotiator as anti-war protests intensify: Live updates