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The White House has condemned pro-Palestinian students who occupied a building overnight at Columbia University in New York, intensifying a political backlash to protests sweeping across US university campuses.
Demonstrators marched into the Hamilton Hall building early on Tuesday and unfurled a “free Palestine” flag, escalating a stand-off after Columbia’s authorities had sought on Monday to end a campus encampment by threatening to suspend any students who did not disperse.
The university — which has been struggling to balance freedom of speech with concerns over antisemitism — clamped down further on campus after the latest occupation, limiting access to resident students and staff providing “essential services”.
“President [Joe] Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates on Tuesday. “Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful — it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.”
Columbia has been a focal point of demonstrations triggered by the war between Hamas and Israel, which started October 7, but a decision by its administration to suspend students and call in the police to arrest them sparked widespread copycat occupations and clampdowns in the US and other universities abroad.
Police on Tuesday also arrested protesters to end the occupation of a building at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. Arrests have also taken place at other campuses around the US in recent days.
Students have demanded measures including more transparency in college investments and divestment from companies they deem to have profited from Israel’s war in Gaza.
Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president, last week said she had been willing to establish new processes to engage with students around transparency and divestment, but had failed to reach an agreement with protesters.
Several different organisations have sued the university over claims of discrimination and failure to protect Jewish and Muslim students, and most recently over disruption of their ability to study and graduate.
Columbia is under pressure from the US Congress to crack down on the protests, but is also racing to prepare for its graduation ceremony to be held adjacent to the encampment on May 15.
The White House stressed Biden had “stood against repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life” and added: “He condemns the use of the term ‘intifada’, as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days.”
The student tent camp was still visible through the locked gates of the Columbia campus on Tuesday, but just a dozen demonstrators and a small number of police and private security guards stood outside its main entrance during the day. One placard read: “Lift the siege on Gaza now”.
The only visible sign of the occupation at Hamilton Hall was a single banner. A truck drove by with a US and Israeli flag painted on the side and the slogan “United we stand with Israel”.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
