Yahoo News US university cancels graduation ceremony over fear of pro-Palestine disruption
The University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles has cancelled its main graduation ceremony, citing new safety measures following student protests over the Israel-Gaza war.
Students leading pro-Palestine protests have set up camps at more than 20 US universities across the US in the last week, in defiance of police warnings, as they attempt to convince their institutions to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and cut off funding ties to Israel.
USC is one of the many campuses that has become a hub for student demonstrations against the war, resulting in the arrest of more than 90 people on the campus.
With two weeks to go before the graduation ceremony on May 10, graduating seniors have called the move “cowardly” and a “violation”.
One student wrote: “We are bearing witness to some of the most extreme displays of cowardice and censorship by USC and their fellow institutions.”
Many students in the graduating class of 2024 also forfeited a high school graduation in 2020 due to Covid-19.
While USC will still host a series of commencement activities in line with the new safety measures, they said that the time it would take to process the roughly 65,000 students and guests that usually attend the main stage graduation ceremony meant that it couldn’t go ahead in line with the measures.
The university had previously sparked controversy at the beginning of April when it cancelled a planned commencement speech by the school’s pro-Palestinian valedictorian, citing safety concerns.
USC is the first university to cancel its graduation following the growing demonstrations on campuses which administrations have struggled to contain. Other schools have seen cancelled classes, faculty walkouts and administrations calling the police on their own students.
Since the first encampment on the lawns of New York’s Columbia University last week, more tents have been erected at some of the leading institutions in the country, including Harvard, Yale and the University of Michigan.
Columbia’s decision to send the New York police department onto the campus to arrest protesters and tear down the camp was widely criticised and prompted some of the other university encampments to pop up in solidarity.
Columbia initially gave the encampment a midnight deadline on Tuesday to pack up which was later extended for another 48 hours early on Wednesday.
With time almost up, Columbia said if no agreement has been reached it would consider “alternative options” to remove the protesters. However, negotiations have “shown progress and are continuing as planned” the university said in a statement late on Thursday.
Officers wrestle with pro-Palestine protesters
On Thursday, Georgia police officers fired rubber bullets and tasers at protesters who gathered at Emory University in Atlanta. Photographs and video showed police wrestling with protesters on lawns.
Among those arrested was Prof Noelle McAfee, the chairman of the university’s philosophy department, who was filmed being led away by a balaclava-clad police officer.
As police officers in riot gear attempted to clear a gathering at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday, there were clashes leading to 57 arrests.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, described the protests as “horrific”.
He said: “Anti-Semitism on campuses in the United States is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.
“The world cannot stand idly by. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally.”
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