Pro-Palestinian Demonstrators Occupy Columbia University’s Main Library

Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators flooded into the main library on Columbia University’s campus on Wednesday afternoon and occupied part of the building, in an attempt to rekindle the protest movement that swept campus last spring.

The protesters, wearing masks and kaffiyehs, hung banners in the soaring main room of Butler Library’s second floor, renaming the space “the Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” according to the demonstrators and witnesses at the library.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a protest movement on campus, said in a Substack post that it had occupied the building to “show that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia’s profits and legitimacy.”

The protest comes as the Trump administration has been cracking down on Columbia over what it calls its failure to protect Jewish students from harassment, cutting more than $400 million in federal research funding to the school. The university has been under enormous pressure to stem disruptive pro-Palestinian protests, particularly those that call for an end to the state of Israel.

Students were evacuated from the library, which was filled with people preparing for their final exams, and Columbia security guards gathered around the area. The Police Department had not yet been asked to respond to the scene, a department spokesman said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Anvee Bhutani contributed reporting.