Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Columbia University, school demands police presence until May 17

New York City police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in an academic building at Columbia University late on Tuesday and removed a protest encampment that the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.

Shortly after police moved in, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik released a letter requesting police stay on campus until at least May 17, two days after graduation, "to maintain order and ensure that encampments are not re-established."

Within three hours the campus had been cleared of protesters, said a police spokesperson, adding "dozens" of arrests were made.

At the start of the police operation around 9 p.m., throngs of helmeted police marched onto the elite campus in upper Manhattan, a focal point of student rallies that have spread to dozens of schools across the U.S. in recent days expressing opposition to the conflict in Gaza.

"Columbia will be proud of these students in five years," said Sueda Polat, one of the student negotiators for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student groups that organized the protests, according to Reuters.

She said students did not pose a danger and called on police to back down, speaking as officers shouted at her and others to retreat or leave campus.

In a letter to the New York City Police Department (NYPD), President Shafik said the negotiations between university administrators and student protesters reached an impasse on Sunday, and expressed hope that police presence could ease the "unrest" for the campus.

"Disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with the teaching, learning and preparing for final exams," the university said in a statement on Tuesday before police moved in.

The protests, found on campuses across the United States, mark the biggest outpouring of U.S. student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.

White House spokesperson John Kirby on Tuesday called the occupation of campus buildings "the wrong approach."

(With input from Reuters, Xinhua)