Columbia University has decided to cancel its main commencement event due to "safety concerns," according to an announcement issued by the administration.
"All school ceremonies scheduled for the South Lawn of Morningside Campus will relocate. Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our Class Days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15."
The decision was inevitable. The anti-Israel protesters are all about disruption. The goal of these protests was to disrupt the education of students and their lives. It doesn't matter if people get mad at them for their disruptions. What matters is the media focus.
Spokesman Ben Chang said the security concerns around the commencement ceremony “proved insurmountable,” and the university was unable to find a suitable alternate site.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress leapt upon the cancellation as more evidence that school administrators were failing their students. “President Shafik and Columbia University administrators have displayed a shocking unwillingness to control their campus,” Speaker Mike Johnson said. “Now, thousands of students who’ve worked hard to achieve their degrees will not get the recognition they deserve.”
Shafik is facing the same dilemma faced by administrators in 1968 during the free speech and Vietnam protests and in 1985 when divesting from South Africa was the issue. Unless administrators are willing to give the protesters what they want or let the police loose on the students, there's little they can do.
And as we've seen, even when the police are given the go-ahead, the problem isn't solved.
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"This is what no one deserves. They want the graduation they signed up for," one parent of a graduating student said.
The high school graduation ceremony for most of these seniors was disrupted by the pandemic. Now, their college graduation is being disrupted by protesters who are supporting Hamas terrorists.
Canceling commencement festivities represents a particular disappointment for this year’s graduating class. Four years ago, many of these students saw their high school graduations canceled due to the pandemic.
“I was talking to my roommate, and she said this was going to be uglier than her high school graduation that was a drive-through graduation in a parking lot,” Vijayakumar said. “It’s frustrating because there were just a lot of other ways this could have been resolved.”
“We also do not want to deprive thousands of students and their families and friends of a graduation celebration,” Dr. Shafik said last week. “Many of them are the first in their families to earn a university degree. We owe it to all of our graduates and their loved ones to honor their achievement.”
Could the university control graduation ceremonies and keep the protesters out? They could try. But when you watch the Democratic National Convention in August, you'll see plenty of protesters in the gallery and on the floor. Even the most sophisticated security measures in the world can't stop people determined to make a scene.
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