After weeks of pro-Palestinian and counterprotest demonstrations on campus, Columbia University announced it will replace its main commencement ceremony on May 15 with “smaller-scale, school-based celebrations,” officials said Monday.
The Ivy League university stated that security concerns were the primary driving force behind the decision, which was taken following conversations with student leaders.
“Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families,” the university management said Monday. “They are eager to cross the stage to applause and family pride and hear from their school’s invited guest speakers. As a result, we will focus our resources on those school ceremonies and on keeping them safe, respectful, and running smoothly.”
Students will therefore be “honored individually alongside their peers” in the more intimate celebrations. Columbia’s Baker Athletics Complex will host “Class Days” and school ceremonies that were originally planned for the Morningside campus’s south lawn.
An estimated 15,000 students were scheduled to graduate in separate outdoor ceremonies on May 15.
On April 17, students at Columbia’s upper Manhattan campus launched protests, setting up roughly fifty tents and calling for the university to pull out of investments in businesses they believe might be making money from the conflict in Gaza. After the demonstrators were driven away by the authorities, they reappeared and soon after that, camps sprung up on college campuses all throughout the nation. When NYPD cops in riot gear retook Hamilton Hall, over 100 people were taken into custody.
“These past few weeks have been incredibly difficult for our community. 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,” officials said.
“We are eager to all come together for our graduates and celebrate our fellow Columbians as they, and we, look ahead to the future.”
