CUNY Law Students Walk Out of Graduation Ceremony
Wave of Pro-Palestine Protests at Graduation Ceremonies Across the US
Dozens of City University of New York (CUNY) law graduates walked out of their graduation ceremony on Thursday 22 May, in solidarity with Palestine and in protest of their administration’s repression of pro-Palestine protest activity. Students donning keffiyehs and sporting Palestinian flags walked out of the ceremony which took place in the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and rallied together a few blocks away at the monument to Adam Clayton Powell.
“We’re walking out of our own commencement ceremony today in protest of CUNY law’s suppression of free speech, and the CUNY system’s investments in Israeli settler colonialism and genocide,” said CUNY law graduate Parima Kadikar at the Adam Clayton Powell monument. The recent repression includes the CUNY public safety and NYPD repression of the encampment established by Brooklyn College students earlier this month. “I think people wonder why our little law school makes such a fuss about Palestine. Well, our little law school sits in the largest public university system in the most populated city in the richest country on earth. If we don’t use our position within the belly of the imperial beast to fight against an ongoing genocide, then why did any of us come to a social justice law school?”
Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at CUNY and the founding director of CUNY’s Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project, also spoke at the monument among the dozens of students who walked out of commencement. Kassem led the crowd of students in a recitation of the Lawyer’s Pledge, a tradition of graduating CUNY law students which upholds values of justice and self sacrifice. The recitation was followed by roaring applause from the gathered students.
CUNY law students have gained a powerful reputation for using their graduation ceremony to take a stand in solidarity with Palestine. In May of 2023, student speaker Fatima Mohammed made headlines for speaking out against Israel during CUNY law’s commencement ceremony, saying that “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinian homes and businesses.” New York Post published a front-page story on her speech with the headline “Stark Raving Grad,” and she was subject to backlash from political leaders including mayor of New York City Eric Adams, Representative Ritchie Torres, and Senator Ted Cruz.
Wave of pro-Palestine graduation actions
These CUNY students follow a wave of pro-Palestine demonstrations at graduation ceremonies throughout the country. Graduates of Columbia University in New York City booed throughout the speech of the university’s acting President Claire Shipman on Tuesday 20 May, erupting into chants of “Free Mahmoud!” Mahmoud Khalil, detained Columbia graduate, would have been at the 2025 graduation ceremony ceremony were he not still in an ICE detention center over 1,000 miles away in Louisiana. Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself claimed in a memo that Khalil’s presence in the US “has potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest,” due to his leadership in the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia in the spring of 2024.
“We have a strong, strong tradition of free speech at this university. And I am always open to feedback, which I am getting right now,” acting President Shipman said amid booing from students. On the other hand, Mahmoud Khalil himself has outlined the role that Columbia has played in repressing pro-Palestine movements on its campus. “Columbia has suppressed student dissent under the auspices of combating antisemitism,” Khalil wrote in an op-ed published in the Columbia Spectator, dictated from ICE detention. “Last year, Columbia turned over student disciplinary records to Congress and created the Task Force on Antisemitism that broadly categorized anti-Israel sentiment as hate speech to condemn protests.”
Dozens of New York University graduates also staged a walkout while wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with Palestine, and booed university president Linda Mills at her commencement address on Thursday, May 15. This was a day after student speaker Logan Rozos, a graduate of NYU’s Gallatin school, used his speech at Gallatin’s graduation ceremony to denounce what he called the “genocide” in Gaza.
“The genocide currently occurring is supported politically and militarily by the United States, is paid for by our tax dollars, and has been livestreamed to our phones for the past 18 months,” Rozos said, to roaring applause by graduates. NYU has since withheld Rozos’ diploma, with NYU Spokesperson John Beckman claiming that Rozos “lied about the speech he was going to deliver and violated the commitment he made to comply with our rules,” and that Rozos chose to “misuse his role as student speaker to express his personal and one-sided political views.”
Over 60 NYU law students also demonstrated at their graduation ceremony on 20 May, according to NYU Law Student for Justice in Palestine. Some held Palestinian flags or banners with slogans such as “NYU funds genocide.” Students “disrupted commencement-as-usual, refusing to accept their diplomas without demonstrating their opposition to the university’s endorsement of and material support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” read a postshared by NYULSJP, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Writers Against the War on Gaza, and Law Students for Palestine. “Again and again, the students continue to show us what principled solidarity looks like in the face of bureaucratic indifference and complicity.”
George Washington University Graduating class spokesperson Cecilia Culver has also been sanctioned by her institution following her commencement speech in support of the Palestinian cause. “I cannot celebrate my own graduation without a heavy heart,” Culver said in her address. Referring to the popular demand of students across the country to have their university endowments divested from companies that support the Israeli military, Culver said: “I am ashamed to know my tuition is being used to fund this genocide.” As a result of her speech, Georgetown University has banned her from the campus.
Action amid repression
The student movement for Palestine has remained active despite the Trump administration’s escalating attacks against activists, including the notable detention of students and academics including Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Badar Khan Suri. Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil had an important hearing on May 22 and solidarity rallies were organized in several cities around the country, including outside the detention center in which he is being held in rural Jena, Louisiana.
The New York Times this week revealed that they had obtained new documents authored by the ultra-conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, the architects of the infamous “Project 2025”. These documents reveal more about “Project Esther” – the Foundation’s blueprint of policies against the pro-Palestine movement. The Project labels the movement as “anti-American” and claims that all pro-Palestine activists and organizations are linked to Hamas.
Project Esther’s policy proposals include several which have already been employed by the Trump administration, including revoking student visas and attempting to deport student activists. According to journalist Kei Pritsker of BreakThrough News, Project Esther “sets the precedent that anyone who opposes the military industrial complex, the current administration, or frankly, any of the future administrations, can be labeled a terrorist, targeted as such, and be stripped of your right to free speech and assembly, have your access to money and public platforms seized, and have your characters assassinated.”
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