• Hmm… a similar thing before with a Basel Al Araj Palestine protest in Columbia University

    On May 7, 2025, student protesters at Columbia University entered and took over the Lawrence A. Wien Reading Room of Butler Library, naming it the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University” as part of a broader protest movement demanding disinvestment from Israel amid the Gaza genocide.[41][42] At the order of Columbia’s administration, students were blocked in by Columbia’s Public Safety and prevented from leaving unless they showed their student ID cards, causing a standoff for hours until the administration summoned the NYPD to arrest the students.[43] The Trump administration praised Columbia’s response as showing “fortitude and conviction”,[44] highlighting the enforcement of campus policies amid federal scrutiny over the university’s handling of antisemitism allegations.[45][46][47] The day before Columbia formalized its settlement with the Trump administration, its University Judicial Board issued expulsions, suspensions, and degree revocations to over 70 students who participated in the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University” occupation of Butler Library.[48][49]

    This is what happened to those actually anti-Trump elements