Student protests threaten to overshadow graduations

Pro-Palestinian student activists have one last opportunity to make a big impact before campuses become empty for the summer: graduation.

Tens of thousands of families and friends will gather on campuses across the country starting this weekend to watch their loved ones celebrate their degree completion, even as schools crack down harder on demonstrations, with more than 2,000 people arrested so far.

Colleges will be closely monitored – and they themselves will be under surveillance over how they deal with disruptions during the celebration season.

“I hope to see [disruptions],” said William Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell University and founder of EqualProtect.org. “I think the threat of interrupting graduation was used to extract concessions from schools” in negotiations with protesters.

Several schools have reached agreements with their protesters to have the camps removed peacefully, including Thursday at Rutgers University, where administrators agreed to a series of demands, including amnesty punishment for activists.

“I think this just demonstrates the power of our student movement, that we are mobilizing basically the entire student population in each of these schools so that the administrations, which have been deaf to us for so long, not listening to our demands, are now accepting- them at face value and making deals that the organizers, the Palestinian organizers themselves, consider appropriate and are accepting those deals,” Batya Kline, a student organizer at Wesleyan University, previously told The Hill.

Northwestern University and Brown University also struck deals, getting a commitment from activists that no disruption would happen to graduation.

Many more schools opted for police force to get rid of their camps, and even in those that reached an agreement, not all protesters were happy with the situation.

Jacobson said neither avenue will fully prevent activists from making their presence known at graduation ceremonies.

“I believe there will be disturbances, whether officially organized by these groups or not. This is a supreme pressure point on schools that schools, I think, are very sensitive to,” he said.

“I think what you’ll see is very similar to what you see when controversial speakers show up on campus,” Jacobson added, saying that instead of one big gathering trying to take control of the proceedings, he could see sequential efforts like “one person raising up and scream, and that person will be taken away. Twenty seconds later, a second person gets up and screams, and this goes on and on.”

Universities are under the watchful eye of Republicans and other critics who say they have failed to control anti-Semitism on campus.

“These anti-Semitic and anti-American radicals will take any opportunity to hijack the spotlight to harass and intimidate Jewish and pro-Israel students, so we expect to see disruptions to public functions, including graduations,” said Liora Rez, founder and executive director. from StopAntisemitism.

“We don’t know what measures universities are taking to avoid interruptions to graduation. For schools that have shown a weak response to pro-terrorism demonstrations on their campuses, such as Columbia and UCLA, we hope that your actions are not adequate. For those who have thus far demonstrated leadership and common sense, we hope you will exercise the same with your graduation policies,” she added.

The University of Southern California (USC) has canceled its main graduation ceremony, citing security concerns after first canceling a speech by its pro-Palestinian valedictorian. The school did not provide details about why it says it cannot provide a safe environment for graduation.

The first big lineups this weekend include the University of Michigan and Ohio State University. Michigan is also among the schools that have been asked to participate in a House hearing later this month on anti-Semitism on campus.

Neither Michigan nor the state of Ohio currently have Gaza camps set up.

“Instead of canceling graduation ceremonies for fear of anti-Semitic disruptions, institutional leaders should develop a backbone and fight anti-Semitism on their campuses with decisive action and moral clarity,” said Education Committee Chairwoman of the House, Virginia Foxx (RN.C.).

While some say schools need to establish clear rules for disruptions, others go a step further.

“We recommend a zero-tolerance policy for abusive and discriminatory speech, as we witnessed at the 2023 CUNY Law graduation. Pre-approve speeches and turn off the microphone if there are any deviations,” Rez said.

In 2023, the City University of New York (CUNY) law school speaker criticized the New York Police Department and accused Israel of indiscriminately killing Palestinians. The speech caused backlash and the school decided not to allow any student speakers this year.

The school’s students filed a lawsuit last month against their institution, claiming that this measure violates their freedom of expression.

“I would love to see people see this moment from students across the country […] coming together to say we want what is happening in Gaza to stop,” said Ale Humano, a CUNY School of Law student, when asked what she would like to see this graduation season.

“Even all of us who are thinking about getting a degree, there are so many people right now who are thinking ‘but this is more important now,” she added.

“We hope that we can begin to restrict the removal of a very essential First Amendment right for students, not just within our school but across the country, to be able to speak about this issue, because we are seeing it taken away and see students being censored”, said Humano.

She said that in addition to potential pro-Palestinian protests and speeches at graduation, actions like those by the president of the American Civil Liberties Union help move their cause forward. The head of the ACLU had withdrew from speaking at CUNY’s graduation due to the school’s restriction on student speeches.

Protesters spent weeks in the headlines, but Jacobson warned that disruptions to graduation ceremonies, in particular, could upset the public.

“Disrupting these types of events I don’t necessarily think advances” the objective of the cause, he said. “They are acting in an inappropriate manner and place and essentially punishing fellow students rather than punishing the school or punishing Israel. So I think this may ultimately be a futile effort.”