New York City police officers broke up a protest at the New School on Friday morning, arresting 19 people who had occupied a building and called for the resignation of the university’s president, Bob Kerrey, The New York Times reported.

Witnesses said protesters were pepper-sprayed, handcuffed, and loaded into white vans after officers entered the building, at 65 Fifth Avenue, around 11 a.m. A police spokesman denied that pepper spray was used, and said that the New School had asked the police to come eject individuals who were trespassing on university property.

The protest against Mr. Kerrey follows a similar incident in December in which students barricaded themselves inside a New School cafeteria for 30 hours, demanding a larger role in university affairs and calling for the resignations of Mr. Kerrey and James Murtha, executive vice president of the New School. That protest ended after negotiations with administrators, but a student group calling itself the New School in Exile said it would take further action if Mr. Kerrey did not resign by April 1, the Times reported. Mr. Kerrey has also been the subject of continuing protests by faculty members.

The Times reported that protesters first occupied the building around 5:30 Friday morning. By 7 a.m., protesters could be seen on the roof of the building waving red and black flags and hanging banners reading “Kerrey and Murtha resign now!” —David Shieh