At least 200 Columbia University protesters have set up barricades at the entrance to Hamilton Hall and about a dozen are inside the campus building. CNN reports this, adding that a student reported that there are no police forces near the occupied classroom. Hamilton Hall is one of the university’s main buildings and houses the provost’s office.
Aerial footage from Freedom News TV overnight showed several dozen people crowded on the steps, several people could be seen inside the building and a Palestinian flag was flying outside a window. The building is a symbol for the university. In 1968, students occupied it to protest the war in Vietnam. In the 1980s it was again occupied by students demonstrating for the disinvestment movement from Apartheid in South Africa.
Columbia University has closed all entrances to campus except the 116th Street gate on Amsterdam Avenue. The university announced that it will limit access to the Morningside Heights campus to only students living in the seven dormitories on campus and employees providing essential services. The decision was made after the occupation. The majority of Columbia students live in university-owned dormitories and apartments off campus.
Over a thousand Columbia alumni have written an open letter to University President Minouche Shafik calling for the eviction of the “illegal encampment” on campus and the “immediate return to safe conditions for all students.” “Enough is enough,” the former students thundered: “Anti-Semitism is never acceptable. Never.” The letter states that suspended students last week defied university orders by returning to occupy tents and trying to intimidate a Jewish student.
For Biden, the occupation of the campus is wrong
For Joe Biden “the forceful occupation of a building on a university campus is the wrong approach”. The spokesman for the American Security Council, John Kirby, said this in a briefing with a small group of journalists regarding the pro-Gaza protests at Columbia University in New York. “Interrupting legitimate university activity is not compatible with the idea of a peaceful demonstration,” the official underlined.
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