I Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University stormed the Hamilton building early this morning of the campus, breaking a glass door to move their camp inside, after the institute’s administration had ordered it to be dismantled.
The building, a historic site of protests against the Vietnam War and against racism in 1968, has become the new center of demonstrations against Israeli military actions in Gaza. Yesterday, Columbia began suspending student activists who refused to dismantle the encampment.
University President Nemat Minouche Shafik said in a statement that days of negotiations between student organizers and academic leaders had failed to convince protesters to remove dozens of tents set up to express opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza. The dismantling order at Columbia came as police at the University of Texas at Austin arrested dozens of students who used pepper spray during a pro-Palestinian demonstration.