Many Students Upset After Columbia Cancels Its All-School Graduation After Weeks of Protests

Columbia University canceled its all-school graduation ceremony for students, amid pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled the campus over recent weeks and led to a police offensive to clear protestors from an occupied building.

The university will, however, celebrate graduating seniors on Class Days and the individual majors within the school can hold their own smaller on-campus ceremonies, the University said in a statement on May 6.

Police are patrolling along the periphery of Columbia University from Broadway to 116th Street, around to Amsterdam then to 120th Street, starting on May 6, and plan to continue doing so until further notice, a NYPD spokesperson said. Columbia requested the police’s presence until at least May 17 to maintain order, according to ABC 7.

The NYPD was called in to clear an encampment on the university’s north lawn last month where the main graduation ceremony ordinarily would have been held. Over 100 people were arrested, the NYPD said at the time.

Since then, only students that live on campus are allowed to be on campus, and the only entrance that is accessible for students to enter is the one on 116th street, where there was a protest happening on May 6. A group of student and independent supporters marched in a circle in front of the entrance to the university. “Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crime,” the protesters chanted.

None of the protestors chose to comment to Straus News.

The spring term’s final classes were held on May 6, with final exams set to run until May 10.

"Based on input and feedback from student leaders, the University has decided to focus attention on Class Days and school-level ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the University-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15,” the university said in a statement. “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."

But graduating seniors are bummed out.

“It’s tough,” a graduating senior, who wanted to remain unnamed, told Straus News. “I just think that it’s exacerbated by the fact that most of the people who are graduating did not have a high school graduation because of COVID-19. I had a drive-thru sort of graduation.”

“I just feel like it’s kind of dumb because they did all these things with NYPD, and shutting down campus in the past,” Gabriel Toh, a freshman, said, sympathizing for the seniors. “Then, not to have the one thing, graduation, that people might have actually cared about—I thought was quite stupid.”

The graduating senior points out that the explanation that university president, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, made to justifiy calling in the NYPD to clear a pro-Palestine encampment on the north lawn and then closing down the campus was so that students will be able to have a graduation ceremony. “So, it doesn’t make much sense that graduation would be cancelled now,” the graduating senior added.

Some students insinuate that there must be some ulterior motive behind the cancelling of the graduation, since there are not that many protests since the encampment was taken down and the occuption of Hamilton Hall was ended by the intervention of the NYPD, a freshman, points out.

“There’s got to be some weird motive to cancelling graduation than it being just for the safety of students. It just feels like something else is going on. The president cancels graduation even though the campus is empty, she’s swept campus. There are police on campus, and no one’s setup anything,” a freshman, who wanted to be remained unnamed, said. “I think the president is scared to be booed on camera to be honest, after all she’s done. The whole thing seems very fake, and it’s hard to trust administration right now.”

“If she tries to blame the cancelling of the ceremony on protesters, it’s very unfair and not true,” the freshman added.

Previously, there were pro-Palestinian protests on campus starting on April 18 when university President Safik authorized the NYPD to enter the campus and begin making arrests of those who had set up the encampment, and occupied Hamilton Hall. Some of the students involved in the protest were suspended from the school, a Straus News story reported.

Campus was subsequently shut down on April 30.

The cancelling of the graduation has impacted the whole Columbia community.

“I’m sad that they couldn’t figure out some way to accommodate the graduation,” said Cecilia McCann, a grad-student at Columbia who was to receive a masters degree but said she feels particularly bad for the graduating seniors, said. “It’s unfortunate that they weren’t able to work something out.”