Columbia University cancels commencement ceremony following student protests

Police stand guard near an encampment of protesters supporting Palestinians on the grounds of Columbia University in New York City on 30 April 2024. Photograph: Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

Columbia University has announced that it will be cancelling its university-wide commencement ceremony this month and switching to smaller celebrations in its 19 colleges, almost three weeks after pro-Palestinian protests erupted at the Ivy League institution.

A university official told the Guardian that the decision to scrap a large commencement ceremony was driven in part by security concerns. Most of the events will be shifted from the main lawn of the Morningside campus, which became the epicenter of students protests calling for the university to divest from Israel, and moved to an athletics center further north in Manhattan.

“These past few weeks have been incredibly difficult for our community,” the university said in a statement. The new focus would be on “class days and school-level ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers”, it said.

The disruption to the annual graduation festivity is an indication of the extent to which the student protests, and the university’s response to them by calling in the New York police department, have shaken the institution. Commencements have been held at Columbia since 1758, and have been located on the lawn of the Morningside campus where this year’s ceremony had been scheduled for 15 May every year since 1926.

The announcement came less than a week after more than 100 students were arrested after the NYPD were sent in to clear an occupied academic building, Hamilton Hall, using flash bangs. The Gaza Solidarity protest encampment on the main lawn, where students sleeping in tents were calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from companies linked to Israel, sparking similar student protests across the country, was also raided and removed.

Eric Adams, New York’s mayor, claimed that the harsh police action was prompted by “outside agitators” but has been under pressure to back up the claim with details. The university government, including it’s president, Minouche Shafik, have also come under heavy criticism from students and some faculty.

A poll of 719 students and professors conducted by the Columbia Daily Spectator and New York magazine found that 57% thought Shafik’s decision to call in the NYPD to arrest protesters was a “totally unwarranted” aggression, and 50% thought she should resign.

The university said it had based the decision to suspend the university-wide commencement ceremony on discussions with student leaders. It said that students were “eager to cross the stage to applause and family pride and hear from their school’s invited guest speakers”.

The statement added that university authorities were looking at the possibility of a different kind of “festive event” still being held on 15 May.

Last month, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles cancelled its commencement ceremony, also citing safety worries.