After Clearing Columbia University Student Protesters, Officers Remove Palestinian Flag & Raise The Stars & Stripes On Flagpole

On Tuesday night, Columbia University president Nemat Shafik called upon the Strategic Response Group of the New York Police Department (NYPD) to clear protesters who had occupied a campus building. 

The action followed New York Mayor Eric Adams‘ assertion that the protests had been “co-opted” and his warning to Columbia students to leave “before the situation escalates.” Subsequently, over 100 police officers swept the campus and arrested nonviolent student protesters for the second time in as many weeks. 

The officers forcibly dragged students from Hamilton Hall, the briefly occupied building and witnesses said that the officers entered the premises with drawn guns and deployed tear gas in the raid, which resulted in at least one student’s loss of consciousness. Shafik has also requested that the NYPD maintain a presence on campus until at least May 17, two days after this year’s commencement ceremony. 

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry and Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard removed the Palestinian flag and raised the U.S. flag in its place. 

Just a short distance away at Brown University, an announcement was made a few hours before Shafik decided to involve the police. Brown’s governing body agreed to vote on a proposal in October to divest the institution’s endowment from companies affiliated with Israel. The proposal was based on recommendations from the 2020 Advisory Committee on Corporation Responsibility in Investment Practices, which identified the need for divestment from “companies that facilitate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory,” as reported by the Brown Daily Herald.

In exchange for this arrangement, the student protesters at Brown University agreed to vacate their encampment by 5 p.m. on the same day. Brown University President Christina Paxson had already been involved in the arrests of her students in multiple nonviolent protests since December, which included 41 members of the Brown Divest Coalition and 20 members of Jews for Ceasefire Now. However, Paxson chose not to escalate the situation further through retaliatory police action against the students, which is why Shafik’s name is now in the headlines while Paxson’s is not.

Since the October 7 attack by Hamas and Israel’s retaliatory assault, students have launched rallies, sit-ins, hunger strikes and, most recently, encampments against the war. They are demanding that their schools, many with massive endowments, financially divest from Israel.

At least 34,568 Palestinians have been killed and 77,765 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October, according to the Hamas health ministry.