Columbia University’s Acting President Claire Shipman issued a statement strongly condemning the recent pro-Palestinian protests on campus that resulted in the temporary occupation of a building and injured campus security officers.
“Earlier today, a group of protesters occupied one of the main reading rooms in Butler Library, refusing to leave, and another group breached the front door, causing substantial chaos. All of this as the bulk of our students are working hard to prepare for exams. These actions not only represented a violation of university policies, but they also posed a serious risk to our students and campus safety,” Shipman said in a video statement on Wednesday evening. Shipman is a former senior national correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America.
“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. I spent the late afternoon and evening at Butler Library as events were unfolding to understand the situation on the ground and to be able to make the best decisions possible. I arrived to see one of our public safety officers wheeled out on a gurney and another getting bandaged,” she continued, adding:
As I left hours later, I walked through the reading room, one of the many jewels of Butler Library, and I saw it defaced and damaged in disturbing ways and with disturbing slogans. Violence and vandalism, hijacking a library, none of that has any place on our campus. These aren’t Columbia’s values.
Let me be clear. Columbia unequivocally rejects anti-Semitism and all other forms of harassment and discrimination. And we certainly reject a group of students, and we don’t know yet whether there were outsiders involved, closing down a library in the middle of the week before finals, forcing 900 students out of their study spaces, many leaving belongings behind.
Our commitment to a safe, inclusive, and respectful campus community is unshakable, and we will continue to act decisively to uphold these values. Let me also make clear, our administration spent substantial time working to defuse the situation in multiple ways through public safety and delegate visits to the students, scenes I witnessed firsthand. The students were told they simply needed to identify themselves and then leave, but most refused.
I worked with professors who generously came to have the same conversations. I’m enormously grateful for the many people we have in our community, our public safety officers, our faculty, our staff, and my team who worked so hard to make Columbia what we know it can be and should be for our community. I also made sure to be present when the police arrived. I wanted to see for myself how the operation would unfold, and I’m grateful that it was orderly, professional, and extremely limited with a focus on the students who refused to leave the reading room.
I am particularly heartbroken and incensed that this disruption occurred when our students are intensely focused on critical academic work.
At a moment when our community deserves calm, the opportunity to study, reflect, to complete the academic year successfully. These actions created unnecessary stress and danger. I’ve seen how much our community wants to take back our narrative, do what they came to Columbia to do, learn, thrive, grow, not take over a library. Moreover, I’m deeply disturbed at the idea that at a moment when our international community feels particularly vulnerable, a small group of students would choose to make our institution a target.
Shipman concluded by noting, “We at Columbia value freedom of speech, robust debate, and peaceful protest. Today’s disruption of Butler Library was not that. We must and we will come together as a community to consider what civil disobedience actually is, what it means.
We need to recognize that when rules are violated, when a community is disrupted for the sake of a few, that is a considered choice and one with real consequences. There’s a line between legitimate protest and actions that endanger others and disrupt the fundamental work of the university. Today, that line was crossed, and I have confidence the disciplinary proceedings will reflect the severity of the actions.”
Columbia has grabbed headlines since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war as protests gripped campuses nationwide. Shipman replaced Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong, who stepped down suddenly in late March to return to her role as CEO of the university’s Irving Medical Center.
Irving was only in the role for eight months, following Minouche Shafik’s resignation in August of 2024 amid pressure and allegations that she did not do enough to stem the tide of rising anti-Semitism on the campus.
Irving cut a deal with President Donald Trump’s administration following the cancellation of some $400 million in federal contracts and grants to pressure the university to meet a set of demands, including eradicating its DEI policies.
