The 36 new special patrol officers announced last month by Columbia University were appointed by the New York Police Department and will be subject to the orders of the police commissioner, an arrangement confirmed by a Columbia spokesperson this week.
Columbia’s leaders applied to the city’s police commissioner to appoint and swear in the officers last year, after they had twice called in NYPD to arrest pro-Palestinian student protesters.
The involvement of the NYPD has not previously been disclosed by Columbia. Samantha Slater, a Columbia spokesperson, confirmed NYPD’s role in response to questions from Reuters first sent last August.
Last spring, Columbia became the epicenter of a pro-Palestinian student protest movement that has roiled campuses around the world, drawing criticism from both Democratic and Republican politicians, donors and some students and faculty.
Columbia’s board of trustees and the 111 students, staff and alumni who make up the University Senate have frequently been at odds over the best way to handle the protests.
Members of the Senate, the rule-making body that shares university governance with the trustees, said the trustees and president’s office had withheld from them that NYPD was involved in any way. Under the university’s charter, opens new tab, the university president must consult with the University Senate before calling on police to stop disruptive protests.
The board of trustees appointed its co-chair, Claire Shipman, as interim university president last week.
In a first for the Ivy League school, Columbia’s new officers have the same powers of warrantless search and arrest as any other police officer under New York’s peace officer law. The state law permits, opens new tab the officers to use “physical force and deadly physical force in making an arrest or preventing an escape.”
