Pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with security at Columbia University\u2019s main library Wednesday, according to the school’s student newspaper.<\/p>\n
The Columbia Daily Spectator reported protesters in Butler Library’s Lawrence A. Wien Reading Room<\/a> took part in an “emergency rally” Wednesday but were stopped from exiting the room by officers with the school’s Department of Public Safety.<\/p>\n Students in the library were told to exit the building by public safety officers following the protest’s start, with the officers placing themselves at the library’s door and blocking other students from coming in, according to the Spectator.<\/p>\n Outside Butler, protesters were able to force their way through some first doors and accessed a vestibule, the Spectator reported. However, Public Safety officers closed the door linking the library and the vestibule, and handcuffs were used to secure it, according to the outlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOver 100 people have just flooded Butler Library and renamed it the Basel Al-Araj Popular University,\u201d a Substack post that appeared to be<\/a> from Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of pro-Palestinian student organizations at the school, said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe flood shows that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia’s profits and legitimacy. Repression breeds resistance – if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus,\u201d the post continued.<\/p>\n The Spectator reported that a Public Safety officer told protesters in the room that they didn’t “want to bring the NYPD on campus. We don’t want to have to fight you on this one, please.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The New York City Police Department (NYPD) posted on the social platform X on Wednesday that it was “responding to an ongoing situation on campus where individuals have occupied a library and are trespassing” due to a request from Columbia<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you leave calmly, show your ID,\u201d the Spectator reported that reading room protesters were told by a Public Safety officer.<\/p>\n