ANN ARBOR, MI - Police detained some Climate Strike protesters after a sit-in Friday, March 15, at the University of Michigan Fleming Administration Building.

UM police issued trespass warnings to a few of the approximately 50 people still at the administration building after 8 p.m.

The protesters wanted to set a date for a public Q&A with UM President Mark Schlissel to talk about what the university is doing to address climate change.

UM administrators said they would respond to the group as soon as possible.

That didn’t satisfy the protesters.

“All we want is a date to have this meeting. We’re not asking for the meeting right now,” Alice Elliott, a UM staff member and 2018 UM alumna, told The Ann Arbor News and MLive after about six hours of participating in the sit-in.

UM spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said Schlissel was away from campus Friday and he had recently met with some of the protesters during his regular office hours. There has been one public town hall meeting with the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, Fitzgerald said, and there’s another session scheduled for April 3.

“We appreciate the urgency our students feel regarding climate change,” Fitzgerald said in a statement Friday night. “President Mark Schlissel shares that sense of urgency.”

Initially, Liz Barry, special counsel to the UM president, and UM Dean of Students Laura Blake Jones asked the protesters to leave the Fleming Building before it closed at 5 p.m. Blake Jones said police would arrest people still in the building after it closed, according to a Facebook livestream posted by Washtenaw County Climate Strike.

A UM police officer later told the protesters they could leave before 8 p.m. without issue, and after that, police would detain people and arrest anyone who could not provide ID, according to a Facebook livestream from Washtenaw County Climate Strike.

“You’re threatening us with violence in response to non-violence,” the protesters responded.

Most of the group left before the 8 p.m. deadline, and a handful of protesters who remained inside received trespass warnings and were escorted by officers out of the building.

A message seeking comment was left with UM police.

Ann Arbor Public Schools trustee Jeff Gaynor said he was detained by police and then released after participating in the sit-in.

I was just arrested, held and released. Police caught me away from the group. They plan to arrest the remaining protestors. Posted by Jeff Gaynor on Friday, March 15, 2019

Friday’s Climate Strike was part of a youth-led global movement that consisted of school walkouts and rallies calling for more action to address climate change.

Hundreds of Washtenaw County middle school and high school students joined UM students for a rally on the Diag at noon. They then marched around downtown before staging the sit-in at the Fleming Administration Building.

Elliott said the sit-in was a last resort after attempting to get action from UM administration through meetings, Michigan Daily articles and petitions.

“We’ve really tried to do all the polite things that we can,” she said. “(The sit-in) is not super fun. We’re here. We don’t have a lot of food. People are tired, but we don’t want to leave. It just seems like the only option at this point. I don’t think we have any other way to get them to listen to us.”

MLive multimedia specialist Jacob Hamilton contributed to this report. A previous version of this article stated UM administrators said they would schedule a time to meet with the protesters as soon as possible. UM administrators said they would respond to the protesters as soon as possible.