April 30, 2024 - US university protests

Our live coverage of the protests rocking US campuses has moved here

NYPD officers detain students at Columbia University in New York City on April 30.

Over 100 protesters were arrested Tuesday at Columbia University and City College of New York, according to a law enforcement official.

Most of the arrests were made at Columbia, including about two dozen protesters who police say tried to prevent officers from entering the campus, the official said.

Tactical teams at Columbia first set up a perimeter around the campus to hold back protesters and prevent further arrests, according to the official. Offers then entered the campus through multiple entry points.

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Jonas Du, editor-in-chief of a Columbia student magazine, told CNN that the protests on campus are student-fueled regardless of any outsider involvement.

It’s “hard to say” whether those arrested from Columbia’s Hamilton Hall were students or from outside the institution, the Columbia Sundial editor said.

Du said he believes there is “evidence” of outside organizations behind the occupation’s planning, but he also says numerous Columbia students were inside Hamilton Hall. 

He said he recognized “many, many Columbia students in the crowd” that formed human chains around the entrances to Hamilton Hall while reporting on the protests. 

Du said students received a text message and email alert from the school stating that a shelter-in-place order had been issued, asking them to remain in their dorms and not to go on campus.

“But all of us knew that that was sort of a signal that the NYPD was going to raid campus,” he added.

This screengrab shows a campus police officer removing a hijab off a protester’s head at Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona.

Video taken over the weekend at Arizona State University shows a campus police officer removing a hijab from a protester’s head during her arrest.

The blurred video, obtained by Mass Liberation AZ and provided to CNN by attorney Zayed Al-Sayyed, who represents the women, shows several ASU Police Department officers surrounding a woman whose hands are held behind her back as one of the officers removes her hijab.

The officers then pull the woman’s sweatshirt hood over her head and a bystander yells, “So she can wear a hood but not her hijab?” At one point one of the officers blocks the woman from the view of those taking the video, as a person yells, “let her go!”

A lawyer representing her and three other women who said it also happened to them is demanding accountability.

Al-Sayyed, who said the arrests took place early Saturday, did not identify the women but indicated that three of them are students at the university and all four are Phoenix-area residents. They are facing criminal trespass charges.

Upon being taken into custody, Al-Sayyed said, the women explained the significance of a hijab and “begged” to keep their hijabs, but he said they were told that their hijabs had to be removed for safety reasons.

After being detained and bused to jail, the women were not given their hijabs back, Al-Sayyed said.

Around 15 hours later, when he was finally given access to his clients, Al-Sayyed said he was able to bring them new hijabs.

The Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-AZ), condemned the university police for the recorded incident and others like it and called for a full investigation.

In a statement to CNN, the university said, “This matter is under review.” CNN has reached out to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for comment.

A lead student negotiator for protesters at Columbia University has told CNN that protests will continue on the campus despite the school’s request for a police presence.

The university has asked NYPD to maintain its presence on campus until May 17.

Since negotiations between student protesters and the Columbia University administration began two weeks ago, the university has not viewed them as an anti-war movement, he said. 

“This is a movement that asks Columbia to divest its investments from the companies that are fuelling the war in Gaza right now,” said Khalil, who is a second-year graduate student at Columbia.

Tensions escalated on campus when officers entered Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, which had been occupied by protesters since the early hours of Tuesday, and dozens were seen being arrested.

Khalil said that “the autonomous group decided to take that building when they felt the university is not answering their demands” and was “alienating” them.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones reports live from Columbia University.

Julia Vargas Jones, a CNN journalist and Columbia Journalism School graduate student, said the university’s request for an on-campus police presence through May 17 will only “dampen the mood even more” as students and their families prepare for graduation.

NYPD swarmed the university Tuesday night after the university authorized them to go into the campus to clear out a building being occupied by protesters. CNN has witnessed dozens of arrests.

“But at the same time, is there a climate for celebration, for graduation?” Jones said.

Jones said she’s unsure the climate on campus will be celebratory as graduation nears.

Jones said she has not witnessed any violent altercations as she reported from inside Columbia’s campus Tuesday night. After the campus was cleared by NYPD, Jones described the atmosphere as quiet enough to “hear a pin drop.”

NYPD officers used flash-bang grenades to breach Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, which protesters had barricaded themselves inside Tuesday, the police department told CNN.

The building’s doors had been barricaded with chairs, tables and vending machines, and windows had been covered with newspaper, the NYPD said.

When a flash-bang grenade is deployed, it emits a bright flash and a very loud bang, often used to shock and disorient. 

Video posted by NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry shows officers searching a bookshelf-lined office after busting the door’s lock with a hammer.

Another video shows officers packing a stairwell and passing chairs to one another.

At least 50 officers had earlier used an elevated ramp to climb into the building through a window. 

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Columbia University’s property has been cleared, the New York Police Department told CNN, less than two hours after officers entered the school’s campus in Morningside Heights.

Hamilton Hall has also been cleared, the NYPD says, and nobody was wounded during the operation. 

The NYPD is still monitoring different locations for protesters across the city, they said.

The New York Police Department entered the Columbia University campus late Tuesday evening after receiving a letter from the university authorizing them to go into the campus, a law enforcement source familiar with the situation told CNN. 

Officers entered Hamilton Hall, which had been occupied by protesters since the early morning hours Tuesday.

Dozens of people have been arrested.

NYPD officers use a special vehicle to enter Columbia University's Hamilton Hall, which has been occupied by student protesters in New York on Tuesday.

Police detain a protester.

A NYPD bus transports people detained at Columbia University.

Police stand guard on campus at Columbia University.

Protesters walk with barricades as police maintain a cordon around campus.

NYPD officers in riot gear march onto the Columbia University campus.

University of Southern California President Carol Folt has again met with protesters from the encampment on campus, but no agreement was reached. 

“We brought some very specific proposals that would address concerns they had about the endowment, which they have said is one of their most important issues,” a statement from Folt said Tuesday. 

This was the second meeting between protesters and Folt.

NYPD officers set fences near Columbia University where pro-Palestinian students are barricaded inside a building and have set up an encampment in New York City on April 30, 2024.

Columbia University has asked the NYPD to maintain a presence on campus through at least May 17 — two days after the school’s commencement — “to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished,” according to a letter sent by university President Minouche Shafik to the NYPD.

The letter was sent to NYPD Deputy Commissioner Michael Gerber earlier Tuesday to formally request that police clear a large protester encampment and Hamilton Hall, a university building that has been occupied by students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. 

The New York Police Department action on Columbia’s Hamilton Hall Tuesday evening comes 56 years after police took action on student protests in the same building, according to Columbia Daily Spectator archives.

More than 700 people were arrested on April 30, 1968, after protesting the Vietnam War and other issues. Hamilton Hall, which police entered through tunnels, was among five occupied buildings cleared by police.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University occupied Hamilton Hall in protest against Israel’s war in Gaza. Several other student-led movements at the university have occupied Hamilton Hall, built in 1907 and containing multiple language departments, to take an escalated stance against a war.

In 1985, Columbia University students protesting South Africa’s apartheid regime and demanding the university divest from business in South Africa chained the doors to Hamilton Hall shut and blocked the entrance for nearly a month.

The university threatened to expel students and sent out disciplinary notices, as community leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Desmond Tutu expressed their solidarity with the students, according to the Global Nonviolent Action Database. Immediately after the blockade ended, university trustees agreed to consider divesting the university’s $39 million portfolio of stocks in US companies doing business in South Africa.

Later that year, Columbia became the first Ivy League school to agree to divest holdings in companies that supported South Africa.

Columbia University students also occupied Hamilton Hall in 1972 in protests against the Vietnam War, and again in 1992 and 1996. 

The NYPD has told reporters that the department used “distraction devices” during their response to the protest at Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall on Tuesday night, refuting reports that tear gas may have been used.

The NYPD uses flash-bang grenades or other methods to surprise and distract people, a spokesperson said. When a flash-bang grenade is deployed, it emits a bright flash and a very loud bang, often used to shock and disorient. 

The NYPD would not elaborate on the so-called distraction devices or confirm arrest numbers to CNN at this time.

Dozens of people have been arrested during the police response tonight, CNN has observed.

NYPD officers arrest people at Columbia University in New York on Tuesday.

CNN observed dozens of people arrested at Columbia University on Tuesday night after New York Police Department officers entered the campus.

Those who were arrested were zip-tied and escorted to buses.

The demonstrators who broke into Hamilton Hall on Tuesday were led by people not affiliated with Columbia University, according to a university spokesperson.

The University of California, Los Angeles, is adding more “security presence” near a pro-Palestinian encampment and taking “several immediate actions,” Chancellor Gene D. Block said in a statement Tuesday.

The university said it will add “greater numbers of law enforcement officers, safety personnel and student affairs mitigators” and ask law enforcement to investigate “recent acts of violence,” according to the statement. A student conduct process was also started that “could lead to disciplinary action including suspension or expulsion,” Block said. 

Barriers placed by protesters have been removed and university staff are on-site to make sure they do not go back up, the statement said. 

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The New York Police Department just entered Columbia’s Hamilton Hall through a second-floor window.

Live pictures and video show at least 50 officers using an elevated ramp to climb into the building through a window. Most were wearing helmets and some were carrying heavy-duty bolt cutters and flexi-cuffs, a zip-tie-like restraint cuff.

Protesters breached Hamilton Hall in the early morning hours of Tuesday. They barricaded and locked doors at the entrance.

Several protesters at Columbia University were seen being taken into custody just off campus at 116th and Amsterdam in New York.

Scores of New York Police Department officers in riot gear could be seen coming down Amsterdam toward protesters, drawing audible boos from the crowd.

Officers were also standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the gate at 116th and Amsterdam.

Police tell students to go inside the dorms at Columbia University in New York on Tuesday.

New York City Police officers crowded the streets outside Columbia University’s campus Tuesday night and began ordering students who had come out of their off-campus dorms to go back inside.

In one dorm building near the campus, police and students pushed against each other until the students retreated into the dorm entrance.

People can be heard in one video yelling and booing as police stream around a street corner.

Protestors had barricaded doors around Hamilton Hall on campus, which they had been occupying.

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Members of the NYPD could be seen in live pictures on CNN entering the Columbia University campus.

This comes after the New York Police Department received a letter from Columbia University authorizing them to go into the campus, a law enforcement source familiar with the situation told CNN.