Three Columbia University students filed a federal class-action lawsuit Friday over the school's response to a 2025 pro-Palestinian protest at Butler Library, accusing campus security officers of locking roughly 80 students in a reading room for hours, beating some of them and then punishing them as a "direct product of a coordinated campaign of coercion by the Trump administration."

The suit in Manhattan federal court names Columbia, former interim President Claire Shipman, the security firms Allied Universal and Pinkerton, and five faculty and staff members who sat on a disciplinary panel.

The lawsuit says Columbia public safety officers blocked the exits within minutes of what the filing calls a "teach-in," then refused to let students out unless they swiped their ID cards.

When one student asked whether blocking the doors was a fire hazard, an officer replied, "No, it's not a fire hazard. Nobody is coming in or out," the complaint states. A fire alarm sounded about two hours later and officers handcuffed the library's front doors shut rather than evacuate the people inside, the suit alleges.

Columbia has said since the day of the protest that its officers held students inside until they identified themselves and that two campus officers were injured.

Columbia spokesperson Millie Wert said the disruption came during the final exam reading period.

"Individuals participating were repeatedly asked for identification and to leave and were warned that they were in violation of our rules and policies," Wert said. "The university cannot tolerate such disruptions to our academic activities."

Wert also defended the faculty and staff named in the suit, saying they "provide an indispensable service to the University, and we could not be more grateful for their work."

A statement from the school did not directly address the lawsuit's allegation that students were beaten.

Students did not want to swipe out and risk identifying themselves because Trump administration officials were publicly threatening to deport or criminally charge pro-Palestinian protesters, said Tahanie Aboushi, an attorney for the students.

"[The university] had already anticipated sanctioning and disciplining the students from the moment they blocked all the exits and wouldn't let them leave," Aboushi said.

The Trump administration had canceled $400 million in federal grants weeks before the protest and demanded Columbia expand its security force, give officers arrest powers and impose what it defined as "expulsion or multiyear suspension" on protesters.

According to the complaint, the NYPD went on to deputize at least 36 Columbia employees as special patrolmen. The NYPD, which is not a named as a defendant in the case, said in a statement that special patrolmen are unarmed and allowed under state law and governed by state rules.

Cheryl Forchilli, another of the six attorneys representing the students, said they can only assume those arrest powers emboldened Columbia's administration.

"They then proceeded to kettle, detain and assault student protesters," she said.

One student plaintiff, Courtland Buchanan, said he intended to only stay a few minutes but was trapped by Columbia’s security, beaten and crushed by a mass of people trying to leave.

“Something that is deeply important to me is to prevent Columbia from ever doing anything like this ever again,” he said, “putting their students in physical danger and punishing them with reprisals that are so draconian for something so minute.”

A spokesperson for Allied Universal said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Pinkerton did not respond to requests for comment.