White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned the protesters at Columbia University who took over a building on campus early Tuesday as “unacceptable,” describing the action as “not an example of peaceful protest.”

What You Need To Know

  • White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned the protesters at Columbia University who took over a building on campus early Tuesday as “unacceptable"

  • Dozens of students barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall — one of the buildings famously occupied during 1968 protests against the Vietnam War — blocking entrances and unfurling Palestinian flags and banners reading “Intifada” and “Free Palestine” banners from windows

  • The takeover came hours after a 2 p.m. Monday deadline for protesters to clear a tent encampment or face consequences

  • A spokesperson for the university said Tuesday afternoon that students occupying the building face expulsion, and those who did not commit to the university's terms to clear the tent encampment are in the process of being suspended

  • House Republican leaders and committee chairs later Tueday announced an expanded probe into antisemitism on college campuses

Dozens of students barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall — one of the buildings famously occupied during 1968 protests against the Vietnam War — blocking entrances and unfurling Palestinian flags and banners reading “Intifada” and “Free Palestine” banners from windows. The takeover came hours after a 2 p.m. Monday deadline for protesters to clear a tent encampment or face consequences.

Protesters sought to rename the building — named for founding father and notable alumnus Alexander Hamilton —  “Hind's Hall” after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl who was killed in the war between Israel and Hamas. 

A spokesperson for the university said Tuesday afternoon that students occupying the building face expulsion, and those who did not commit to the university's terms to clear the tent encampment are in the process of being suspended.

"Those students will be restricted from all academic and recreational spaces and may only access their individual residence," spokesperson Ben Chang said in a statement. "Seniors will be ineligible to graduate. This is about responding to the actions of the protesters, not their cause." 

"Disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with teaching, learning, and preparing for final exams, and contributes to a hostile environment in violation of Title VI," Chang continued. "The safety of our community remains our top priority."

In a briefing earlier Tuesday, Kirby said that President Joe Biden “believes that forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach.”

“That is not an example of peaceful protest,” Kirby said, adding: “Hate speech and hate symbols also have no place in this country. A small percentage of students shouldn’t be able to disrupt the academic experience, the legitimate study, for the rest of the student body.”

“Students paying to go to school and want an education aren’t going to be able to do that without disruption, and they ought to be able to do it and feel safe doing it,” he added.

When asked about Republicans in Congress raising the prospect of sending in the National Guard to break up protests, Kirby said “that decision making has to start with the governor” of individual states, “because that's their responsibility. There is no active effort to look at federalizing the National Guard at this time.”

Kirby said the National Security Council and the White House are watching the protests with “concern.”

“We continue to believe in freedom of speech and the right to protest policies and ideas that you want to protest,” he said. “You’ve just got to do peacefully. You can't hurt anybody, and you can't in this case … you can’t be disrupting the educational pursuit of your fellow students. They have a right to go to school and they have a right to do so safely. They have a right to get an education and taking over a building by force is unacceptable.”

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle condemned the protesters who took over the building.

"Smashing windows with hammers, taking over university buildings is not free speech," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat and the highest-ranking elected Jewish official in U.S. history, said Tuesday in remarks on the Senate floor. "It is lawlessness, and those who did it should promptly face the consequences that are not merely a slap on the wrist."

"Free speech, discussion and even strong disagreement are fundamental American values, and campuses should be places where those values are cherished," Schumer continued. "Campuses cannot be places of learning and argument and discussion when protests veer into criminality, and those who commit such acts are doing nothing to convince others that their cause is just."

House Republican leaders and committee chairs on Tuesday afternoon announced an expanded probe into antisemitism on college campuses. Among the statements at Tuesday's briefing, North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said she gave notice to administration officials from Yale University, University of California, Los Angeles and University of Michigan to appear for a hearing on May 23.

"Antisemitism is a virus," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who visited Columbia University last week, declared, pledging: "We will hold these universities accountable for their failure to protect Jewish students on campus."

Johnson also challenged President Biden to visit Columbia University "to see it for himself," saying he called senior White House domestic policy advisers last week after his visit to the Ivy League institution urging him to do so.

"This is not a gray issue. There is right and wrong here," he said, adding: "I think this is a time for decisive leadership. We're living in fateful moments here, we do not have time for weakness, and anyone who has a platform or an elected office I believe has a duty and a responsibility to speak to it."

"The world is watching as the leadership of our so-called elite colleges and universities continue to fail to condemn antisemitism and protect Jewish students on campus," New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference and a graduate of Harvard University who has led the push against higher education institutions amid Israel's war with Hamas, said at a separate briefing earlier Tuesday.

"Just look at the abject failure of Columbia’s president to enforce their own code of conduct that they gave lip service to during the recent Education and Workforce hearing," Stefanik said at a House GOP leadership press conference on Tuesday. "Last night, the pro-Hamas, antisemitic mob took over an academic building. The university leadership has lost complete control. It is a disgrace, and it is untenable."

"It's an important moment on college campuses," House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said at a separate news conference. "Everyone is entitled a right to protest, but everyone is also entitled to feel safe, especially on a college campus. I do not support taking over buildings. That is not appropriate, and that should be addressed."

"Students who wrongfully occupy buildings, destroy private property, and willfully disrupt campus life should be held accountable," said New York Democratic Reps. Jerry Nadler and Adriano Espaillat, who represent the Morningside Heights neighborhood where Columbia University sits.

Spectrum News' Maddie Gannon contributed to this report.