Columbia University is canceling its large university-wide commencement ceremony amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests but will hold smaller school-based ceremonies this week and next, the university announced Monday.

"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," Columbia officials said in a statement.

The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.

The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony while allowing other commencement activities to continue.

Colleges in the U.S. have been rocked by a wave of campus protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza, and for U.S. colleges to divest from Israel.
The Wall Street Journal’s Steven Russolillo rounds up some of the most important ones. (April 2024)

Pro-Palestinian protesters at an encampment at the University of Southern California, one of the focal points of anti-Israel protests across U.S. college campuses, left the scene early Sunday after authorities warned them that they could be arrested.

Their departure came after university safety officers and Los Angeles police began clearing the center of campus, where police had arrested 93 people on April 24.

"If you are in the center of campus, please leave,” the university warned the protesters on the social media platform X, saying they could be arrested if they stayed.

Elsewhere, pro-Palestinian protests continued at several college graduation ceremonies on Saturday.

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Student protests mostly muted; some arrests on Virginia campus

At the University of Virginia, 25 people were arrested for trespassing after police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from the campus.

At the University of Michigan, demonstrators chanted anti-war messages and waved flags during graduation ceremonies. More protests occurred at Indiana University, Ohio State University, Princeton University in New Jersey and Northeastern University in Massachusetts.

That’s the argument of Edhita Singhal, an international student from India studying at the University of Southern California.

Despite the fear of not finding a good internship, it’s important to relax and take care of yourself, she writes in her biweekly column for campus newspaper The Daily Trojan. (April 2024)