A black Columbia University student was pinned down by public safety officers after failing to show his student identification card, sparking a heated confrontation that led to several officers being placed on leave, university officials said.

Footage of the incident late Thursday showed Alexander Cecil McNab, a 23-year-old senior at Columbia, being restrained by six campus safety officers after he refused to immediately produce his student ID card at Barnard College’s Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning, where Columbia students are allowed access to study.

“You have no right to touch me!” McNab told the officers. “Take your hands off me! You’re going to take your hands off me! Take your hands off me!”

Another student recorded the confrontation showing a pair of officers pinning McNab to a countertop as he continued to demand they release him.

“Let’s walk outside,” one of the officers told McNab as he was allowed to regain his footing.

“Let me show you my ID,” McNab said. “You want to see my ID? I am a Columbia University student. You see this? That’s me. This is the third time Barnard Public Safety has chased me down and you put your hands on me. I didn’t touch any of you. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”

A supervisor then took McNab’s ID and walked away, ordering the student to follow him outside to chat, which he refused, citing his right to be in the building.

“Well, let’s see if you’re an active student,” the officer said.

In a statement Sunday, Barnard President Sian Leah Beilock called the confrontation “unacceptable and antithetical” to the school’s values.

She said all of the public safety officers and the supervisor involved have been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an independent investigation.

The suspension involved six officers, according to the Columbia Spectator.

“I am as deeply troubled by what we witnessed in those videos as you are,” Beilock’s statement read. “I sincerely apologize to the Columbia student involved and have reached out to him to better understand his experience on campus. I also apologize to the students who witnessed it and were treated disrespectfully, and to all who have felt its impact.”

Beilock said the incident “puts into stark relief” what some students, particularly those of color, have relayed about their experiences with campus safety officials and their lack of trust in those individuals.

“We must ensure that public safety officers act equitably toward all and that the community trusts this will occur,” her statement continued. “That work is now underway, effective immediately.”

Barnard will also review how its public safety officers and supervisors are trained to interact with students, Beilock said, with clear policies enforced regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation of national origin.

“The reality is that conversations about race, racial bias, and racial profiling need to take place, and I acknowledge that Barnard College must participate authentically in this vital dialogue — including me,” Beilock’s statement continued. “I want to be clear that racism has no place on our campus.”

McNab, for his part, told the Washington Post that he went to Barnard late Thursday in search of free food left over by students in a library as he planned to work on his anthropology thesis over the weekend.

“There’s never a good time for this to happen,” McNab told the newspaper. “But this weekend, I had all these things to do.”