The recent pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses are starting to calm down as graduation ceremonies approach, but some events were still disrupted by agitators. Universities have been dismantling the unlawful encampments that had spread across their campuses in the past two weeks to ensure they are cleared before families arrive to celebrate graduation. Despite many protests dwindling, some ceremonies were still disturbed by small walk-outs and larger demonstrations at certain schools.
The protests began at Columbia University in mid-April and spread to other schools, resulting in the arrests of approximately 2,900 students and other individuals at 57 colleges or universities nationwide. The protesters were advocating for their schools to divest from Israel-related entities and sever ties with Israeli universities.
While some schools had to make changes to their graduation ceremonies, most events proceeded as planned after the protests were cleared. Administrators implemented various measures such as increasing security, establishing free speech zones, creating ticketing systems, and conducting security checks.
At Duke University, a small group of graduates staged a walk-out during comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement address, while at the University of California, Berkeley, a larger disruption occurred. Similarly, disruptions were reported at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Additional minor disruptions were seen at Emerson College, Pomona College, Northeastern University, the University of Texas at Austin, the Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Despite the disruptions, most graduation ceremonies were able to proceed successfully after schools took action to address the protests.
