Students in cap and gown pose for photos on the Columbia campus. Photo by Alec Gitelman

By Lauren Markoe, Debrah MiszakMay 6, 2024

Columbia University has canceled its main graduation ceremony, following more than two weeks of tumult that saw students arrested, the clearing of Gaza solidarity encampment and the occupation of a campus building by pro-Palestinian protesters.

The school has been the epicenter of a national movement to end the war in Gaza and to pressure universities to divest from Israel. Graduations at the University of Michigan and other universities have been interrupted in recent days by protesters and USC, after violent confrontations on campus, canceled its primary graduation ceremony last week. Emory University in Atlanta, where dozens of protesters (including at least one professor) have been arrested in recent weeks, announced Monday that it would be relocating its own commencement ceremony off-campus.

The announcement from Columbia comes the same day police began breaking up a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where President Sally Kornbluth had given students until 2:30 p.m. to disperse.

“This prolonged use of MIT property as a venue for protest, without permission, especially on an issue with such sharp disagreement, is no longer safely sustainable,” she wrote in an email to the university community. “And no matter how peaceful the students’ behavior may be, unilaterally taking over a central portion of our campus for one side of a hotly disputed issue and precluding use by other members of our community is not right. This situation is inherently highly unstable.”

Also Monday, Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway explained in a statement his decision to negotiate with pro-Palestinian protesters last week and strike a deal to clear their encampment on campus. “While it is not within my authority to make a decision regarding divestment, I will reiterate again that I believe the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement is wrong. I think divestment from Israel is wrong,” he wrote. “I believe that enlightenment comes from involvement and that lasting progress and peace are the outcomes of diplomacy and discussion.”

In related news, 13 federal judges, all appointed by former President Donald Trump, said in a public letter on Monday that they would not hire graduates of Columbia or its law school as law clerks.

Columbia’s ‘Class Days’

Smaller “Class Days” ceremonies will take place for graduates of schools within Columbia, most at the school’s Baker Athletic Complex at the northern tip of Manhattan, about five miles from the main campus, starting Friday and continuing through the next week. But none will happen on the campus’ central lawn, where the protest had been centered.

“We are determined to give our students the celebration they deserve, and that they want,” said an announcement from the school released Monday. It also hinted at an event to replace the campus-wide graduation originally scheduled for May 15.

“These past few weeks have been incredibly difficult for our community,” the announcement continues. “Just as we are focused on making our graduation experience truly special, we continue to solicit student feedback and are looking at the possibility of a festive event on May 15 to take the place of the large, formal ceremony.”

Individual schools within Columbia, such as the journalism school, will hold their graduations indoors at its campus on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, or at its athletic complex at the northernmost tip of Manhattan.

For its own graduation ceremony on May 15, Columbia’s vaunted journalism school has chosen as its speaker an Israeli reporter who has called for a ceasefire in Gaza and compared Israel to apartheid South Africa. Amira Hass has written about the influence her parents’ experiences during the Holocaust has had on her view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, telling Guernica magazine in 2011 that she was proud of them, when refugees themselves, for refusing to move into apartments housing Palestinian refugees. In 2001 a Jerusalem court ruled for a group of Jewish settlers in Hebron who had brought a defamation case against her. And she has twice been arrested for entering the Gaza Strip without a permit.

Saturday Night Live addressed the campus protests in its opening sketch this weekend. Watch it below:

JTA contributed to this story.

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