*

School security orders protesters to disperse

*

Reuters witness sees people handed over to police

*

Mayor says Columbia asked for police to help

*

(Adds details, background throughout)

By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - Dozens of protesters stood

on tables, beat drums and unfurled pro-Palestinian banners in

the reading room of Columbia University's main library on

Wednesday in one of the biggest campus demonstrations since last

year's student protest movement against Israel's war in Gaza.

Videos and photographs on social media showed protesters,

most wearing masks, with banners saying "Strike For Gaza" and

"Liberated Zone" beneath the Lawrence A. Wein Reading Room's

chandeliers in the Butler Library.

U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed the protests last

year were antisemitic and showed a failure to protect Jewish

students. Columbia's board of trustees has been negotiating with

the administration, which in March canceled hundreds of

millions of dollars of grants to the university for scientific

research.

The university has said it has worked to combat antisemitism

and other prejudice on its campus while fending off accusations

from civil rights groups that it is letting the government erode

academia's free-speech protections.

On Wednesday, Columbia said in a statement its public safety

staff asked students to show identification and ordered

protesters to disperse. Those who did not comply would be

disciplined for breaking school rules and face "possible

arrest," the school said.

A Reuters witness saw campus security escort people out a

door and hand them over to police officers outside. It was not

immediately clear if they were being taken into custody.

A New York Police Department spokesperson said the police

department was monitoring the situation and its personnel were

"within the vicinity of the university."

At one point, more people were seen trying to enter the

library, according to the Reuters witness. Public safety staff

locked a door and shoving and pushing ensued.

One student organization representing the protesters said on

social media that school security had assaulted demonstrators,

and that the activists had refused to show their IDs to

officials "under militarized arrest."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in an interview with the

local NBC News affiliate channel that Columbia officials had

asked for help and that the New York Police Department was

sending officers to the campus.

CALLS FOR UNIVERSITY TO DIVEST

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a collection of

student groups, recirculated on social media on Wednesday

long-standing demands that the university no longer invest its

$14.8 billion endowment in weapons makers and other companies

that support Israel's military occupation of Palestinian

territories.

Trump, a Republican, has called the pro-Palestinian student

protests across college campuses last year antisemitic and

anti-American. Student protesters at Columbia, Jewish organizers

among them, say the government is unfairly conflating

pro-Palestinian protests and antisemitism.

Columbia was at the forefront of a pro-Palestinian and

anti-Israel student protest movement that swept across U.S.

campuses last year over Israel's war in Gaza, which began in

2023.

Trump is also trying to deport some pro-Palestinian

international students at U.S. schools, saying their presence

could harm U.S. foreign policy interests.

The protesters in the library also demanded the release of

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia graduate

student who remains in a Louisiana immigrants jail after he was

among the first to be arrested.