A small contingent of Duke University graduates objected to pro-Israel comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s speech at his commencement in North Carolina on Sunday, with about 30 of the 7,000 students leaving their seats and shouting “Free Palestine” amid a mixed of boos and applause.
Some waved the red, green, black and white Palestinian flag. Seinfeld, whose eponymous sitcom was one of the most popular in American television history, was there to receive an honorary doctorate from the university.
The comedian-turned-actor, who stars in the new Netflix film “Unfrosted,” has publicly supported Israel since it invaded Gaza to dismantle Hamas after the organization attacked the country and killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel on 7 of October. The ensuing war killed nearly 35,000 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Students on U.S. campuses responded this spring by creating camps and calling on their schools to cut ties with Israel and the companies that support it. Students and others on campuses who law enforcement authorities identified as outside agitators participated in protests from Columbia University in New York City to UCLA.
Police escorted families of graduates past a few dozen pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to block access to Sunday night’s graduation at Pomona College in Southern California. After protesters set up camp last week at the campus ceremony stage, the small liberal arts school moved the event 30 miles from Claremont to the Shrine Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. Tickets were required to attend the event, which the school said would include additional safety measures.
In April, police in riot gear arrested 19 protesters who occupied the college president’s office with about 1,700 college students.
Protester Anwar Mohmed, a 21-year-old Pomona senior, said the school has repeatedly ignored calls to consider divestment of its endowments from companies linked to Israel in the war in Gaza.
“We have been repeatedly ignored by the institution,” Mohmed said outside the Sanctuary on Sunday. “So today we have to say it’s not business as usual.”
At the University of California, Berkeley, on Saturday, a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters waved flags and sang during graduation and were escorted to the back of the stadium, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. There were no large counterprotests, but some participants expressed frustration.
“I feel like they are ruining it for those of us who paid for the tickets and came to show our pride in our graduates,” said Annie Ramos, whose daughter is a student. “There is a time and a place, and this is not it.”
Sunday’s small student protest at Duke’s graduation in Durham, North Carolina, was emblematic of Sunday college events across the U.S., after weeks of student protests resulted in nearly 2,900 arrests at 57 colleges and universities.
This weekend’s graduation events remained largely peaceful.
At Emerson College in Boston, some students took off their graduation robes and left them on the stage. Others stamped “Free Palestine” on their mortars. One woman, looking at a camera broadcasting a live feed to the audience, unzipped her robe to reveal a kaffiyeh, the black and white checkered scarf commonly worn by Palestinians, and showed a watermelon painted on her hand. Both are symbols of solidarity with those living in the occupied territories.
Others displayed messages to a camera situated on stage, but the live feed quickly switched to a different view, preventing them from being seen for long. The chants during some of the speeches were difficult to decipher.
The protests at Columbia University, where student uprisings inspired others on campuses across the country, led the school to cancel its main graduation ceremony in favor of smaller gatherings.
The University of Southern California told its valedictorian, who has publicly supported the Palestinians, that she could not give her keynote address at the commencement ceremony for security reasons. She later canceled her main graduation ceremony.
At DePaul University in Chicago, graduation is more than a month away. But as the school year ends, school leaders say they have reached an “impasse” with pro-Palestinian protesters at the school, leaving the future of their camp on the Chicago campus uncertain.
The student-led DePaul Divestment Coalition, which calls on the university to divest from economic interests tied to Israel, set up the camp nearly two weeks ago. The group alleged that university officials walked away from negotiations and tried to force students to sign an agreement, according to a student statement Saturday night.
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Associated Press journalists Ryan Sun in Los Angeles, Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Kimberlee Kreusi in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
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