Columbia cancels commencement as US-wide protests continue

Columbia University has relented and joined a series of institutions that have cancelled their main commencement ceremonies because of the disruption arising from nationwide pro-Palestinian campus protests that have tallied yet more arrests and political pushback.

The Ivy League institution has been battling to quell non-stop demonstrations since its president was called last month to Washington by federal lawmakers arguing that she should not tolerate widespread student criticisms of Israel.

The Republican-led political tactic instead stoked the protest movements at Columbia and dozens of other institutions, leading to a blossoming of campus tent encampments and some building occupations, more than 2,500 arrests, untold numbers of student suspensions, and existential questions about US higher education’s ability to balance partisan donor pressures with its commitment to free enquiry.

“These past few weeks have been incredibly difficult for our community,” Columbia said in announcing that it would abandon the norm of a single university-wide graduation ceremony and hold smaller diploma-award ceremonies for individual schools.

Another US institution hit by prolonged demonstrations in support of Palestinian civilians, Emory University, said it would maintain its plans for main commencement honouring all students together, but move the location to an indoor site more than 20 miles (32km) north-east of its Atlanta campus.

Emory’s president, Gregory Fenves, said he reluctantly accepted the shift after hearing recommendations from security experts, university police and other government agencies.

“I know that this news will be deeply disappointing to many of you,” Dr Fenves told the Emory community.

Major new confrontation sites include the University of California, San Diego, where police cleared an encampment by making more than 60 arrests, more than a third involving non-students.

In Washington, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers persisted with their efforts to force US universities to accept their preferences on the limits of student speech and academic freedom.

The chair of the education committee in the US House of Representatives, Virginia Foxx, announced that she was calling in the presidents of Northwestern and Rutgers universities to join the chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles for the third in her panel’s in-person hearings to demand they take a tougher stance regarding student protests.

The presidents of Yale University and the University of Michigan, previously scheduled to appear at the hearing set for later this month, will instead be allowed to participate in transcribed interviews with lawmakers serving on the committee.

The Northwestern and Rutgers leaders were added because they “have made shocking concessions” to students participating in protest encampments on their campuses, Ms Foxx said.

“They have surrendered to antisemitic radicals in despicable displays of cowardice,” said Ms Foxx, who has repeatedly equated US student opposition to the killings of Palestinian civilians as tantamount to antisemitism, in what political experts have described as a strategy to bolster US government support for the right-wing government of Israel and to weaken public support in the US for academic freedom.

A spokesperson for Ms Foxx declined to explain why the Yale and Michigan presidents were being given the opportunity to avoid in-person hearings – a highly contentious experience that led to the resignations of the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, and weeks of turmoil for the leaders of Columbia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Foxx representatives insisted, however, that Yale and Michigan leaders would need to follow through on the plans for transcribed interviews “or risk deposition and subpoena”.

While Harvard and Penn lost their leaders, Columbia has endured extended distress as its president, Baroness Shafik, tried to immediately comply with the demands of Ms Foxx and other lawmakers – mostly but not entirely Republicans – by inviting New York City police to arrest more than 100 demonstrators camped on Columbia’s central lawn.

That action by the Columbia president instigated the nationwide series of student-led encampments, including violence at UCLA by pro-Israel demonstrators from outside the campus community whose physical attacks on pro-Palestinian activists were largely tolerated by local police.

At Columbia, the university president agreed to refrain from further arrests and to try negotiating with protesters. But she rejected their call to end university investments that benefit the Israeli military and threatened suspensions if the encampment was not ended. The protesters – including large numbers of non-students – responded by seizing control of a nearby campus building, an action that led to more arrests.

In their statement announcing the cancellation of Columbia’s main commencement, university officials said they would hold school-specific diploma ceremonies and other celebratory events, many of them using the university’s main athletics complex rather than the main lawn.

Many US college seniors at Columbia and other institutions also lost their in-person high-school graduation ceremonies four years ago because of the Covid lockdowns.

Michigan held its commencement over the weekend, and it featured students waving Palestinian flags and shouting out against the military assault on Gaza. Rutgers, meanwhile, is one among a few US universities where campus leaders have reached a negotiated settlement to end protest encampments. As at other universities, Rutgers leadership declined to divest from Israel-related financial holdings, although it accepted steps that include the establishment of an Arab cultural centre and the hiring of more faculty and staff familiar with Palestinian communities.

MIT had largely tolerated its student protests, but it then shifted course after its leadership could not reach a settlement with protesters, and used police to clear out its encampments without making arrests. “We have much work still to do to resolve this situation, and will continue to communicate as needed,” MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, said in a statement to her campus community.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com