Approximately 550 students, professors and religious leaders gathered near the Columbia University campus in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon for what organizers called an alternative graduation ceremony, featuring speeches by pro-Palestinian activists and writers, and clergy from various faiths.
The two-hour event, called “The People’s Graduation” and organized by Columbia faculty and staff, was held toward the end of a week of official graduation ceremonies, many of which the university moved to its athletic complex some 100 blocks north to avoid disruptions by protesters.
“People are feeling very alienated from the college and the university and they wanted a space where they could celebrate their accomplishments and express themselves politically,” said Nara Milanich, a professor of history at Barnard College, who attended the event.
Many students had expressed dismay when Columbia’s leadership canceled the university’s main commencement ceremony, and moved most events off campus. In the weeks leading up to graduation, the school’s administration had called the police twice to remove protesters from its Morningside Heights campus, where students established a pro-Palestinian encampment and occupied a building.
In a letter to the New York Police Department in April, Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, requested that the police remain on campus until at least May 17 “to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished.”
Administrators said they were “deeply disappointed” at having to change plans for graduation, but said the security issues were “insurmountable.”
During the alternative event on Thursday, held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, college students from across New York City attended, and many wore the powder blue caps and gowns of Columbia. Some speakers grew emotional as the Palestinian-American poet Fady Joudah read his poem “Dedication,” which he wrote during the first three months of the war in Gaza.
Toward the end of the ceremony, organizers played a video message from Hind Khoudary, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza, who thanked the protesters for their actions.
“We never imagined that anyone is gonna ever give us hope the way you guys did,” she said. “Hopefully I’ll see you one day soon when all of this ends.”
