The Ivy League school responded aggressively to a campus demonstration Wednesday
Locked in negotiations with the Trump administration over the future of their university, Columbia’s leaders needed to show they had changed since letting protests overwhelm the campus last year.
On Wednesday, they got their chance.
Five hours after a group of about 100 masked protesters forced their way past security guards and pushed through turnstiles into the school’s main library, they had their hands zip-tied behind their backs and were being marched out the door by police.
“Violence and vandalism, hijacking a library—none of that has any place on our campus,” said acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman. “What happened today, what I witnessed, was utterly unacceptable.”
The show of force came as the school is engaged in high-stakes negotiations with the Trump administration over the future of its federal funding—and autonomy.
The government has presented Columbia with a proposal for a consent decree, a form of federal oversight that would give a judge responsibility for ensuring Columbia complies with the agreement, according to people familiar with the matter. Back in March, the administration canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts over antisemitism concerns, and said the university needed to meet demands to regain access to federal funds.
The Trump administration praised Columbia’s “strong and resolute” response to the protesters, saying the school’s acting president “has met the moment with fortitude and conviction.”
The protest crackdown came as university leaders are also reviewing the authority of the faculty senate, which includes enforcing the university’s code of conduct. The review is part of a broader fight for control of the campus between faculty and administration.
Columbia’s handling of the protest stoked tensions further among some faculty. The school’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors condemned the moves, decrying the “tragic events of last night.”
“As the Trump administration has demanded ever more draconian crackdowns on student protest, our administration has responded by granting enhanced powers to public security that can as easily escalate as defuse confrontations with students and that last night did not prevent the administration from again summoning the NYPD to campus,” the group said.
The school’s response to the protest contrasted with its approach last year, when chaotic and sometimes violent pro-Palestinian protests and encampments led the school to move classes online and cancel its main graduation ceremony. Now, for the first time in more than 50 years, the school employs campus police with expanded authority to arrest students.
On Wednesday, protesters arrived at Columbia’s Butler Library at around 3:15 p.m. as the school entered finals week. Students were inside studying when the protesters, most wearing kaffiyehs and with their faces covered, rushed past two security guards.
The students carried megaphones, beat drums and chanted “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Arab,” said Shoshana Aufzien, a first-year student who was in the library studying.
The protesters wrote “Free Palestine” on chairs and windows, placed stickers over security cameras and hung banners on a wall, according to witnesses. They sent out a press release condemning capitalism and explained they had “liberated” the library “from the edifice of fascist barriers and violent knowledge production it bolsters.”
Campus security officers arrived at the library a few minutes after the protesters settled into the main reading room. Security personnel locked doors and physically blocked the main exit, according to a graduate student who was grading papers in the library when the protesters entered.
The protesters began to push against a group of campus security officers who were blocking them, the student said. They told the protesters they could leave but only after they showed security their campus ID, according to students in the room.
Two security officers were injured, according to a school spokesperson.
Meanwhile the school leadership assembled. At about 4:30 p.m., the school told the New York City Police Department it might need assistance.
Shipman, the acting president, spent the late afternoon and evening at the library, she wrote in a community message. “I arrived to see one of our Public Safety officers wheeled out on a gurney and another getting bandaged,” she wrote.
NYPD arrived about 7:15 p.m. and arrested about 80 protesters. By 8:15 p.m. the last of the protesters were out of the library and a maintenance crew went in to begin cleaning up.
“President Shipman acted swiftly and decisively and I’m grateful for that,” said Aufzien. “It’s not a given on this campus.”
Write to Douglas Belkin at Doug.Belkin@wsj.com and Joseph Pisani at joseph.pisani@wsj.com
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Appeared in the May 9, 2025, print edition as ‘Columbia Takes Harder Line on Protests’.