By Trevor Hunnicutt and Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Joe Biden welcomes peaceful protests at college graduation ceremonies where he and other administration officials will speak, the White House said Tuesday, as pro-Palestine protests spread across the country.
Columbia University on Monday canceled its main commencement ceremony after weeks of unrest that roiled the Ivy League college’s campus, but will still hold smaller events at schools.
The protests in Columbia inspired similar demonstrations at dozens of universities across the country. Students called for a ceasefire in Gaza and demanded that their schools divest from companies with links to Israel.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden welcomed peaceful protests on campuses and elsewhere but would continue to condemn hate speech, anti-Semitism or violence.
“It doesn’t matter where he is, where he’s speaking. It doesn’t matter if it’s a graduation or one of his events. He welcomes peaceful protests,” she said.
“We have been very clear. We believe that all Americans should have the right to peacefully protest,” he added. “What we don’t want to see is hate speech, violence.”
Biden will deliver a commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta on May 19.
Biden warned on Tuesday that the threat of anti-Semitism is growing in the United States, including on college campuses, joining a heated American debate over Jewish safety, Zionism, free speech and support for Israel. , in the country with the largest Jewish population after Israel.
Biden last week addressed the campus unrest, saying Americans have the right to protest “but not the right to cause chaos” through vandalism, breaking windows or closing campuses.
Jean-Pierre reiterated the White House’s position that it should be up to universities to decide how to respond.
She condemned behavior captured on video at the University of Mississippi over the weekend as “undignified and racist” after a student was accused of mocking a black protester by making monkey noises during an anti-war rally.
“The actions in the video are beneath any American,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.
The Democratic president, who is seeking re-election in November, has taken a cautious line of denouncing anti-Semitism while supporting the right of young Americans to protest and trying to limit long-term political damage.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Andrea Shalal; writing by Andrea Shalal; editing by Alistair Bell)
