The announcement comes days after New York police raided and dispersed the Gaza solidarity encampment on Columbia’s campus.
Columbia College has cancelled its university-wide graduation ceremony after it cracked down on pupil protests in help of Palestinians, a campus motion that spurred a wave of comparable demonstrations around the globe.
In an announcement on Monday morning, Columbia mentioned it will prioritise “Class Days and school-level ceremonies, the place college students are honored individually alongside their friends, moderately than the College-wide ceremony that’s scheduled for Could 15”.
“Our college students emphasised that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most significant to them and their households,” it mentioned.
The choice comes simply days after the Columbia administration referred to as New York Metropolis police onto campus to disperse college students who had occupied a college constructing and erected a protest encampment to point out solidarity with Palestinians.
The scholars have demanded an finish to Israel’s conflict on the Gaza Strip and urged Columbia to divest from any corporations which are complicit in Israeli abuses in opposition to Palestinians.
The Columbia protest encampment and subsequent crackdown by police — throughout which tons of of individuals have been arrested — impressed comparable initiatives at universities throughout the USA, in addition to in Canada, France and the UK.
College directors have accused pro-Palestinian demonstrators of utilizing anti-Semitic language and creating an unsafe surroundings on campus.
US President Joe Biden made comparable claims throughout a speech final week addressing the protest motion.
“Dissent is important to democracy, however dissent must not ever result in dysfunction or to denying the rights of others so college students can end the semester and their faculty training,” Biden mentioned on Thursday. “There’s a proper to protest however not the appropriate to trigger chaos.”
However the demonstrators have rejected these allegations, saying the choice to ship cops to interrupt up the Gaza encampments and arrest individuals is what put college students in hurt’s means.
Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting on Monday from a Gaza encampment at George Washington College in Washington, DC, mentioned the protest there has “positively grown” in current days.
“There’s tent after tent of water or meals, and indicators saying, ‘Every thing is free identical to Palestine will probably be in the future,’” Culhane mentioned.
Mariam, a Jewish pupil demonstrator who spoke to Al Jazeera utilizing solely her first title, mentioned anti-Semitism allegations are supposed to divert consideration from Gaza.
“It’s meant to take the main focus away from the genocide in Gaza, and it’s meant to take the main focus away from our calls for,” she mentioned.
These calls for embody defending pro-Palestinian speech on campus, divesting from the Israeli state and ending educational partnerships with Israeli establishments.
“We’re going to keep right here,” Mariam added. “It doesn’t matter what the police do, what the college administration does. We’re going to hold combating till our calls for are met.”
Monday’s announcement at Columbia additionally got here because the Israeli navy ordered Palestinians in japanese Rafah, a part of the southern Gaza Strip, to go away the realm earlier than an anticipated floor assault.
Jan Egeland, secretary common of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), mentioned in an announcement {that a} Rafah offensive “may result in the deadliest part of this battle, inflicting horrific struggling on roughly 1.4 million displaced civilians within the space”.
Practically 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli assaults in Gaza for the reason that conflict started in early October. Residents of the besieged coastal territory face a dire humanitarian disaster and a scarcity of meals, water and medical provides.
“Rafah had turn into the final refuge for tons of of 1000’s of households, disadvantaged of any semblance of security. With nowhere else to go, they’re going through the specter of extended displacement and dying,” Egeland mentioned.