A small group of Duke University graduates protested pro-Israel comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement speech to a mixture of boos and cheers as 7,000 people at a graduation ceremony in North Carolina on Sunday. Approximately 30 students stood up from their seats and shouted “Liberate Palestine!”
Some waved red, green, black and white Palestinian flags. Seinfeld, whose eponymous sitcom is one of the most popular shows in American television history, was there to receive an honorary doctorate from the university.
The stand-up comic-turned-actor stars in the new Netflix film Unfrosted, in which he invades Gaza to dismantle it after Hamas attacks and some are killed. He has since publicly supported Israel. 1,200 in southern Israel In the ensuing war, almost all of them died. 35,000 people in GazaThe majority are women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
A small student protest Sunday at Duke University’s graduation ceremony in Durham, North Carolina, became emblematic of Sunday’s campus events across the country. Weeks of student protests As a result, approximately 2,900 people were arrested at 57 universities.
Students on campuses across the country set up camps in response this spring, calling on schools to cut ties with Israel and companies that support Israel. Protests from Columbia University to UCLA in New York City included students and others on campus who law enforcement officials identified as outside agitators.
Police escorted the families of graduates past dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who tried to block them from entering Sunday night’s graduation ceremony at Southern California’s Pomona College. After protesters set up encampment on the campus’s ceremony stage last week, the small liberal arts school moved its event to the Shrine Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles, 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Claremont. Moved to Liam. Tickets are required to attend the event, and the school said additional safety measures will be in place.
In April, police in riot gear arrested 19 protesters who occupied the university’s president’s office along with about 1,700 undergraduate students.
Protester Anwar Mohamed, 21, a fourth-grader at Pomona, said the school has repeatedly ignored calls to consider withdrawing donations from companies with ties to Israel in the Gaza war.
“We have been ignored by the facility time and time again,” Mohamed said outside the temple on Sunday. “So I must say today is not business as usual.”
At the University of California, Berkeley, a small group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were escorted to the back of the stadium Saturday after waving flags and chanting chants during a graduation ceremony. According to the San Francisco Chronicle. Although there were no large-scale counter-demonstrations, some participants voiced their dissatisfaction.
Annie Ramos, whose daughter is a student, said, “I feel like they’re ruining the people who paid for their tickets and came to show their pride in their graduates.” She said, “There is a time and a place, and this is not it.”
This weekend’s induction event Generally peaceful conditions continued.
At Emerson College in Boston, some students took off their graduation robes and left them on the stage. Some wrote “Free Palestine” on mortar boards.A woman unzips her robe as she stares into the camera livestreaming it to the public. Kaffiyeh, flashed a white and black checkered scarf commonly worn by Palestinians, and a watermelon painted on her hand. Both are symbols of solidarity with people living in occupied territories.
Some people displayed messages on cameras set up on stage, but the livestream quickly switched to a different view and was unwatchable for a long time. The chants during some of the speeches were difficult to decipher.
Following protests at Columbia University, where student uprisings have inspired others on campuses across the country, the school has decided to cancel its main graduation ceremony and hold a smaller gathering.
The University of Southern California told a valedictorian who publicly supported the Palestinians: she was unable to give the keynote speech Graduation speeches were canceled due to safety concerns.that’s later Major graduation ceremonies have been canceled.
At DePaul University in Chicago, graduation takes more than a month. But as the school year draws to a close, school leaders say the school’s relationship with pro-Palestinian protesters has reached an “impasse” and the future of the camp on the Chicago campus remains uncertain. .
The student-led DePaul Divestment Coalition, which has called for the university to divorce itself from economic interests tied to Israel, set up camp nearly two weeks ago. In a student statement late Saturday, the group claimed university officials walked away from the talks and tried to force students to sign the agreement.
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Associated Press writers Ryan Sun in Los Angeles, Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Kimberly Krusi in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
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