By James Lynch | National Review
Dozens of anti-Israel protesters were arrested at Columbia University after they stormed and occupied a campus library while students were studying for final exams, marking the largest anti-Israel demonstration on the Morningside Heights campus since last year’s high-profile encampment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is vowing to review the visa statuses of those agitators who were arrested.
Columbia called in the NYPD Wednesday to assist campus police with arresting some 75 protesters who occupied the main reading room on the second floor of Butler library and refused to leave. The demonstrators broke into the library in the afternoon, disrupting 900 students and forcing them out of their study space during finals.
“These actions not only represented a violation of University policies, but they also posed a serious risk to our students and campus safety. We had no choice but to ask for the assistance of the NYPD, and I’m grateful for their help and professionalism, as well as that of our Public Safety team. Let me be clear, what happened today, what I witnessed, was utterly unacceptable,” acting Columbia President Claire Shipman said in a lengthy statement.