The scene in front of Columbia University’s famous Low Memorial Library last week captured a snapshot of the growing tensions rippling across college campuses as schools prepare for spring commencements.
Students posed for photos on the library’s steps, their sky-blue graduation gowns fluttering in the wind. At the same time, pro-Palestinian student activists had set up encampments on the lawn in front of the building to protest Israel’s war in Gaza.
In three weeks, schools in New York — including Columbia and New York University — are set to welcome thousands of students, their families and faculty for graduation ceremonies. As they prepare, the specter of disruption looms as student-led protests on those campuses and others around the country have been met with police crackdowns, arrests and evictions of students from campus housing.
Columbia President Minouche Shafik said in a statement on Tuesday that she hoped the disruptions from the protests would not interfere with the May 15 commencement.
“I am deeply sensitive to the fact that graduating seniors spent their first year attending Columbia remotely,” Shafik wrote, referencing the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns. “We all very much want these students to celebrate their well-deserved graduation with family and friends.”
A Columbia spokesperson said in an email to The Washington Post that it is monitoring protests on campus but declined to confirm any changes to commencement plans.
Other schools have faced swift backlash over attempts to defuse controversy by limiting student commencement speeches or announcing designated protest zones during graduation ceremonies.
On Tuesday, eight law students at the City University of New York sued school administrators on First Amendment grounds over a September 2023 decision to end the long-standing practice of having a student-elected peer speak at graduation.
Eric Horowitz, a 26-year-old third-year law student and a plaintiff in the suit, told The Post that students being able to select a peer speaker is especially important following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, where more than 34,000 people have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Horowitz, who serves as a board member on the law school’s Jewish Law Students Association, said university officials ended the practice of allowing student-selected speakers after two criticized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. That led some to denounce the speeches as antisemitic, accusations Horowitz denies.
“We think it’s more important than ever … to have our voices heard in solidarity with the people of Palestine,” he said.
CUNY Law School officials did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment from The Post.
Last week, the University of Southern California announced that it would not have this year’s valedictorian speak at commencement, citing vague concerns over security. Valedictorian Asna Tabassum, who is Muslim, had shared pro-Palestinian views; university officials said news of her selection as graduation speaker had drawn responses that had “taken on an alarming tenor,” but did not specify any threats. After backlash at the decision, the school canceled a keynote commencement speech by director Jon M. Chu, an alumnus of the school.
University of Michigan officials earlier this month announced on the school’s website that they would set up an area outside the commencement venue that would be designated for protests. That came after demonstrators “significantly disrupted” the annual Honors Convocation, which university President Santa Ono described as an unacceptable “intrusion on one of the university’s most important academic traditions.”
“We all must understand that, while protest is valued and protected, disruptions are not,” Ono said in a statement. “One group’s right to protest does not supersede the right of others to participate in a joyous event.”
The incident led officials to propose a “Disruptive Activity Policy,” under which students would be subject to suspension or expulsion if found in violation. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan called the policy “vague and overbroad” and said it risked “chilling free speech expression on campus.”
Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League wrote an open letter to college and university presidents urging them “to take clear, decisive action now to ensure that graduation ceremonies, events, and functions run smoothly, and that all students and their families feel safe, welcomed and celebrated.”
In the letter, ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt suggested officials strengthen policies about disrupting school events, then communicate to students the rules and consequences for violating them.
“Graduation is a time of joy and celebration,” Greenblatt wrote in a statement. “As leaders in the Jewish community, we ask that you take your role seriously in making sure that Jewish students — and all students — are not robbed of a positive, memorable lifecycle event.”
Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/24/commencement-graduation-protests/