New York’s Columbia University cancels graduation ceremony due to unruly students
New York: New York’s prestigious Columbia University has announced it is canceling its main graduation ceremony next week due to pro-Palestinian protests.
The announcement Monday is the latest development in a movement that began about three weeks ago in Columbia and has swept college campuses across the country.
The graduation ceremony was scheduled for May 15 on the South Lawn of the Manhattan campus, where protests had set up before authorities demolished them last week.
The Ivy League institution said it would “forgo the university-wide celebration” and instead hold a series of smaller events.
“We are committed to giving our students the celebration they deserve, and that they want,” Columbia announced, adding that small-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families.
The university said: “We will focus our resources on those school celebrations and running them safely, respectfully and smoothly. “There are considerable efforts already underway to reach that goal.”
Students across the US have protested and set up tents at dozens of universities to register their opposition to the war in Gaza, while also calling on President Joe Biden to do more to stop the bloodshed.
They have also demanded that their institutions stop supporting companies that support the Israeli government.
Maya James, a psychology student at Columbia, told Arab News: “Seeing the university’s crazy response to the student protests has brought a lot of people together, as I think most people on this campus, including faculty, have come to terms with this.” Can agree that students should not do this.” We’ve been punished for expressing our First Amendment rights to protest, to petition, to do all these things that we’ve been encouraged to do for so long.
He called on the university to grant an apology to the students who were suspended for expressing their First Amendment rights, which protect the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly, and petition.
James also called for the university to disclose its investments because “at the moment there is no possibility for us students to know what the university is expected to do.”
He described the “waves” at protest sites as “absolutely remarkable”, with cultural and educational programs offered and all kinds of activities taking place.
He said the demonstrations were a continuation of Colombia’s long tradition of protest that began in the 1960s with opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
James said it was “incredible” to see that solidarity for Palestinian interests spread across campuses across America, and that people are pushing to ensure that “we actually see an independent Palestine in our lifetime and our universities. No longer complicit in genocide.”
Protesters have gathered on at least 40 US university campuses since April 17, often setting up tent camps to protest the rising death toll in the Gaza Strip. According to American media, about 2,000 people have been detained.
Police officers have forcibly broken up several student protests in recent days, including one at the request of New York University administrators.
Protesters barricaded themselves inside Columbia, the epicenter of student protests in New York, and some complained of police brutality as authorities evacuated the faculty.
(with agencies)