Public Safety officers clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters at a protest in the Lawrence A. Wien Reading Room in Butler Library, which began at roughly 3:15 p.m. Wednesday.

Inside the reading room, around 100 protesters hung a banner reading “Liberated Zone,” resembling the banner posted at the April 2024 “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

Inside the building, Public Safety officers attempted to clear out protesters from the reading room. Public Safety officers forcefully pushed several protesters to the ground both near the building’s front entrance and the reading room’s entrance.

After the sit-in began, Public Safety officers stood at the doors of Butler, preventing students outside from entering the building and telling students already in the library to leave. A crowd of students formed outside the entrance to Butler, as Public Safety officers prevented people from entering the library, regardless of if they had left behind personal belongings.

At around 5:03 p.m., the crowd rushed past the first set of doors, and several protesters entered the vestibule of Butler, pushing past Public Safety officers standing in the doorway. At least four Public Safety officers stood in the doorway between the vestibule and the library pushing protesters out of Butler.

“You have to stop pushing,” a Public Safety officer told the crowd.

“Stand back,” another Public Safety officer said. “Everybody back up.”

The officer repeatedly shouted, “Back up.”

Several members of the crowd told the Public Safety officers, “We cannot back up.”

One protester and one journalist were pushed to the ground.

“You’re hurting this guy right now,” one individual shouted.

At around 5:06 p.m., Public Safety officers secured the closed doors between the vestibule and Butler using handcuffs. Protesters tried to open the door from inside the vestibule.

At around 5:15 p.m., protesters in the reading room attempted to leave, however, Public Safety officers blocked the exit, surrounding and pushing the protesters back into the room.

“Let them out,” one individual shouted. “What will it take?”

“All they gotta do is walk out,” a Public Safety officer responded.

At around 5:08 p.m., a spokesperson for the New York Police Department told Spectator that the NYPD is aware of the protest, but its presence has not been requested.

At around 5:28 p.m., an NYPD spokesperson told Spectator that there is “no participation on NYPD’s side.”

In a Wednesday post on X, Columbia University Apartheid Divest announced an “Emergency Rally: All Out to Butler Library.”

CUAD also released a Substack post titled “[Flood Butler Now] Disruption Until Divestment.” In the post, CUAD announced that students had “reclaimed” the building as the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University.”

“The flood shows that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia’s profits and legitimacy,” the post reads.

At 4:42 p.m., the Office of Public Affairs sent an email to the Columbia community saying that “the University is dealing with a disruption in reading room 301 of Butler Library.”

“Columbia’s Public Safety Team is responding and working to mitigate the situation. Individuals have been asked for identification, which will be recorded, and asked to disperse,” the email read. “They have been told that failure to comply will result in violations of our rules and policies and possible arrest. No individuals who have been protesting in the reading room have chosen, at this point, to identify themselves and depart.”

The email asked affiliates to avoid the “immediate area near Butler Library in the near term.”

“While this is isolated to one room in the library, it is completely unacceptable that some individuals are choosing to disrupt academic activities as our students are studying and preparing for final exams,” the email read. “These disruptions of our campus and academic activities will not be tolerated. Individuals found to be in violation of University Rules and policies will face disciplinary consequences.

Two minutes after the Office of Public Affairs email, Barnard Dean Leslie Grinage and Kelli Murray, executive vice president for strategy and chief administrative officer, sent an email to the Barnard community stating that they were “aware of a disruption” at Butler and advising students to avoid the area.

“If there are any Barnard students participating in unauthorized activity at Butler, they should immediately comply with all rules and regulations and disperse,” the email read.

According to CUAD’s Substack post, the protesters have five demands: divestment from “Zionist occupation, apartheid, and genocide,” an academic boycott of “all complicit institutions, including the cancellation of the Tel Aviv Global Center,” “cops and ICE off our campus,” an end to “Columbia’s occupation of Harlem; return land to Harlemites and open the gates,” and amnesty for all students, staff, and faculty “targeted by Columbia University’s discipline.”

At 3:45 p.m., Public Safety officers stood at the doors of the reading room to block the exit. Public Safety officers demanded that protesters present their Columbia IDs.

At 3:55 p.m., a Public Safety officer inside the reading room said over a speaker that protesters must present their IDs or would be subject to arrest for trespass.