2024-05-04 21:28:00
Protesters chanted anti-war messages and waved Palestinian flags during the University of Michigan commencement Saturday, when student protests once morest the Israel-Hamas war clashed with the annual pomp and circumstance of the graduation season at American universities.
The protest took place at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor at the start of the event. About 75 people, many wearing traditional Arabic kaffeyeh with their graduation gowns, marched down the main aisle to the graduation stage.
They chanted “Regents, regents, you can’t hide! You fund genocide!” as they hold signs, including one that reads: “No more universities in Gaza.”
Overhead, planes flew competing messages. One read: “Now remember Israel! Free Palestine!” The other read: “We stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.”
Officials said no arrests were made, and the protest did not seriously disrupt the nearly two-hour event, which was attended by tens of thousands of people, some of them waving Israeli flags.
State police prevented the protesters from reaching the stage, and university spokeswoman Colleen Mastony said public safety personnel escorted the protesters to the back of the stadium, where they remained during the conclusion of the event.
What to know regarding student protests
“Peaceful protests like this have taken place at UM commencement ceremonies for decades,” she added.
US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro paused several times during his remarks, at one point saying: “Ladies and gentlemen, if you might please return your attention to the podium.”
Before administering an oath to armed forces graduates, Del Toro said they would “protect the freedoms we so cherish,” including the “right to peacefully protest.”
Michigan was among the schools bracing for protests during its commencement ceremonies over the weekend, including Indiana University, Ohio State University and Northeastern University in Boston. Much more is planned in the coming weeks.
At Indiana University, protesters encouraged supporters to wear their keffiyehs and walk out during remarks by President Pamela Whitten on Saturday night. The campus in Bloomington, Indiana, has designated a protest zone outside Memorial Stadium, where the ceremony will take place.
Tent camps of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza has spread across campuses nationwide in recent weeks in a student movement unlike any other this century. Some schools agreements reached with the protesters to end the protests and reduce the possibility of disrupting final exams and commencement.
Many camps were demolished and protesters arrested in police crackdowns.
As students across the country protest Israel-Hamas war, student journalists cover their peers in a moment of uncertainty.
Here are some of the student publications referenced in this story:
The Associated Press has recorded at least 61 incidents of arrests at campus protests across the US since April 18. More than 2,400 people were arrested on 47 college and university campuses. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
At Princeton, in New Jersey, 18 students launched a hunger strike in an effort to pressure the university to divest from companies linked to Israel.
Senior David Chmielewski, a hunger striker, said in an email Saturday that the latest protest began Friday morning with participants consuming only water.
He said the hunger strike will continue until university administrators meet with students regarding their demands, which include amnesty from criminal and disciplinary charges for protesters.
Other protesters are taking part in “solidarity fasts” that last 24 hours, he said.
Princeton students set up a protest camp and some staged a sit-in at an administrative building this week, leading to regarding 15 arrests.
Students at other colleges, including Brown and Yale, launched similar hunger strikes earlier this year before the more recent wave of protest camps.
In other developments on Saturday, police broke up a protest at the University of Virginia. Campus police called it an “illegal assembly” in a post on social platform X.
Footage from WVAW-TV shows police wearing tactical gear clearing protesters from an encampment on the Charlottesville campus. Authorities did not say how many people were arrested.
Meanwhile, near Boston, students at Tufts University peacefully disbanded their protest camp without police intervention on Friday night.
Officials at the school in Medford, Massachusetts, said they were pleased with the development, which was not the result of any agreement with protesters. Protest organizers said in a statement that they were “deeply angry and disappointed” that negotiations with the university had failed.
The protests stem from the Israel-Hamas conflict that began on October 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing regarding 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking regarding 250 hostages.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, regarding two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-controlled territory. Israeli attacks devastated the enclave and displaced most of Gaza’s residents.
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Marcelo reported from New York. Associated Press reporters Ed White in Detroit; Nick Perry in Boston; and Adrian Sainz in Memphis contributed to this story.
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