Pro-Palestinian protests have forced the University of Southern California to cancel its main commencement this month. Now campus demonstrations against Israel threaten to disrupt other graduations, especially those featuring Biden officials as keynote speakers.
In recent days, police have arrested hundreds of students and faculty who commandeered buildings and lawns as “Gaza solidarity encampments” at more than a dozen universities. The occupations at the University of Michigan, George Washington University, the University of Vermont and elsewhere have prompted administrators to ramp up security to keep antisemitic incidents from spilling over into graduations, which start this weekend.
Protesters at Columbia University, Morehouse College and the University of Vermont have threatened to disrupt commencement unless their schools rescind invitations for President Biden and members of his administration to address graduates. They cite the president’s support for Israel‘s war in Gaza, which they call “genocidal.”
“The Gaza problem runs deeper than college protests,” James Carville, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to President Bill Clinton, told The Washington Times. “Biden has become a focal point of the backlash.”
However, Mr. Carville suggested the protesters are a small segment of students. He pointed to a recent Harvard University poll that found voters aged 18 to 29 cared more about inflation, health care and other domestic issues than the war.
Israel launched its military offensive after the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked areas in southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages on Oct. 7. Since then, Israeli forces have leveled much of Gaza and killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan health officials.
Campus protesters have demanded a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and demanded their schools divest financially from all businesses tied to Israel.
Inflaming the protesters, the Biden administration has supported Israel and blocked United Nations resolutions for a cease-fire. Last week, the president reiterated that support, signing a law to send another $26 billion in aid to Israel and humanitarian agencies.
On Monday afternoon, protesters marching near an encampment at the public University of Vermont waved signs reading “no war criminals at commencement.”
They pledged to disrupt graduation on May 19 unless administrators cancel a keynote talk by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield over her vetoes of three cease-fire resolutions.
School officials told The Times they were in discussions to beef up security at graduation.
“We enhance security for significant events on campus in general and for commencement specifically,” Adam White, executive director of university communications, said in response to an email. “We are in close coordination with the ambassador’s team.”
Two other universities have moved to restrict anti-Israel protesters ahead of commencement speeches by Mr. Biden and Kristen Clarke, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Ms. Clarke, the Biden administration’s top civil rights official, is scheduled to speak to Columbia Law School graduates on May 13.
Columbia University administrators summoned the New York Police Department to campus Tuesday night to clear encampments from a school building and a lawn designated for commencement activities.
The NYPD announced Wednesday morning that officers had arrested 119 people on charges of trespassing, criminal mischief and burglary.
Mr. Biden plans to deliver the May 19 commencement address at Morehouse College, a historically Black institution in Atlanta where anti-Israel sentiment has run high.
“There are of course opinions saying that we should rescind the invitation,” Morehouse Provost Kendrick Brown told The Atlanta-Journal Constitution on Monday. “But there are a number of individuals who recognize this opportunity and the prominence of the speaker and an opportunity for Morehouse to highlight its mission and to be able to use this venue to ask important questions. So from that perspective, we have not, at this point, thought about rescinding anything.”
In a meeting with school administrators last week, Morehouse professors raised concerns that protesters will heckle the president. Several faculty, students and alumni have refused to appear onstage with Mr. Biden.
“To be clear, more than 34,000 Palestinians are dead with the help of President Biden’s leadership,” reads an open letter from Morehouse alumni to school administrators that some professors have circulated on social media. “We therefore see this invitation as a moral disaster and an embarrassment to the college.”
Andrew J. Douglas, a Morehouse political science professor and faculty council member who supports the protests, told NBC News last week that the college was working with the Secret Service on “security protocols” for the talk.
“Then again, we may just need to let it all collapse,” Mr. Douglas posted Monday on X. “This student movement is rapidly exposing the university as the house of cards that it is. May it be a generative time. Free Palestine.”
Special Agent Steve Kopek, a Secret Service spokesperson, told The Times this week that security concerns prevented the agency from sharing “the means and methods used to conduct our protective operations.”
In an email, the White House referred The Times to comments that press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered last week, pledging that the president would forge ahead with the talk.
She told reporters that Mr. Biden “always takes this moment as a special time to deliver a message, an encouraging message, a message that’s hopefully uplifting to the graduates and their families.”
“And we’re going to continue to have these conversations that I’ve just mentioned, with the different communities about what’s happening right now,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “We get it. It’s painful.”
As commencement season kicks off this weekend, other colleges have also stepped up their security measures.
In the nation’s capital, around 100 tents reoccupied the commons at George Washington University this week after protesters broke through metal barriers meant to keep them out.
A GWU spokeswoman told The Times that the private school has implemented “robust security plans” for its May 19 commencement on the National Mall.
Jen Psaki, an MSNBC host and former White House press secretary, is scheduled to give the keynote address and receive an honorary degree from the federally chartered university at that event. She left the Biden administration in 2022.
“We remain committed to moving forward with these ceremonies,” spokeswoman Julia Mejian said in an email. “Despite the ongoing disturbance on University Yard, GW is open and operating with enhanced safety measures.”
In the Midwest, students will graduate this Saturday from the University of Michigan. The public school’s commencement web page declares that guests for the ceremony must pass security screenings, leave banners at home, and go to a “designated area” outside the event if they wish to protest.
“This year, our call for [commencement] volunteers and our training included information on how to manage disruptions,” Kim Broekhuizen, director of public affairs, told The Times. “This might include asking someone to relocate a sign or to otherwise stop ongoing disruptive behavior.”
She said the university‘s goal “is to support a successful and celebratory event worthy of the achievements of our extraordinary graduates.”
Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of the history of education at the private University of Pennsylvania, said college leaders are trying to balance free speech with the right of families to celebrate graduation.
UPenn administrators met this week with protesters after they refused to vacate a large encampment at the center of the Ivy League campus.
“They should allow protest, but they should also prevent it from interfering with the ceremonies,” Mr. Zimmerman said in an email. “Students don’t have a ‘right’ to interrupt graduation, any more than they have the right to interrupt math class.”
So far, the protests have forced just one university to call off its main graduation ceremony entirely.
Last week, administrators canceled USC‘s May 10 commencement following a backlash against its decision to bar pro-Palestinian valedictorian Asna Tabassum from delivering her graduation speech. Citing security concerns, the private school will host several smaller diploma ceremonies instead.
A first-generation Asian-American Muslim, Ms. Tabassum had drawn criticism for her social media posts, which Jewish advocacy groups deemed antisemitic.
“I believe that that was a decision that they had to make,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, told CNN on Sunday. “They were expecting about 65,000 people on campus, and they just did not feel that it was going to be safe.”