(Bloomberg) -- More than a hundred students were arrested for trespassing at Columbia University after the Ivy League school called the New York Police Department to dismantle tents and disperse a pro-Palestinian protest on campus Thursday.

The incident occurred a day after Columbia President Nemat Shafik’s congressional testimony over antisemitism on college campuses. In a letter to the university community, Shafik expressed regret for authorizing police intervention but said she had no choice after “all of these attempts to resolve the situation were rejected by the students involved.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, speaking at a press conference at the NYPD headquarters announcing the arrests, acknowledged the protesters’ grief over the ongoing conflict. However, he stressed the importance of upholding the law and adhering to university policies. 

The protesters occupied a lawn on Columbia’s campus for more than 30 hours and were given multiple orders to disperse before arrests began, he said.

“Heartbreak does not give the right to harass,” Adams said. “We are not in a city of lawlessness.”

By Friday morning, the atmosphere on the campus in Morningside Heights had calmed, though chants could be heard coming from the quad inside the main gate on Broadway, which was closed to the public. A small group of police officers stood nearby.

Khulan, a student from Mongolia, said the administration was wrong to call in the police to remove student protesters and dismantle the encampment, calling the move heavy-handed. 

“They have a right to be heard, as long as they are expressing their concerns in a non-violent way,” said Khulan, 32.

Read More: Columbia’s President Grilled Over Professors Praising Hamas 

While most students complied with police orders on Thursday, a large group surrounded officers on the south lawn, resorting to insults and inflammatory rhetoric, according to the NYPD.

Among those arrested was Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota. In a post on X, Hirsi said that she was suspended for her involvement.

Omar is a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which has convened a series of hearings about antisemitism on campuses since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The campus has been roiled by protests since the attack, which prompted retaliation from the Jewish state that has killed some 33,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Shafik was pressed by lawmakers on Columbia’s disciplinary process for faculty and students who break the rules on protesting and hostile speech. The lawmakers have said students have reported multiple cases of antisemitic harassment, assault and vandalism while the school has allowed anti-Israel groups to violate school policies with “apparent impunity.”

In recent months Columbia has hardened its rules, including creating designated areas for protests away from academic buildings. The school has taken disciplinary action against 90 students and removed five professors from the classroom, lawmakers were told Wednesday.

(Updates with comment from student in seventh paragraph.)

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