Numerous graduating students protested the Israeli conflict in Gaza, Yale’s financial ties to weapons manufacturers, and Yale’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests on the Ivy League campus by staging a walkout from the graduation festivities on Monday.
As soon as Yale President Peter Salovey began to announce the custom of presenting degree candidates college by college on the campus of Yale’s Old Campus, which was crowded with thousands of graduates wearing caps and gowns, there was a walkout.
Phelps Gate was the exit point for the ceremony, and at least 150 students who had been seated close to the front of the audience rose together, faced away from the stage, and retraced their steps into the yard during the processional.
Many of the demonstrators were holding little banners that said things like “Divest from war” and “Books not bombs.”
Some wore latex gloves in the color red, which represents bloodied hands.
“Drop the charges” and “Protect free speech” were written on other placards, which made reference to the 45 individuals detained during a police crackdown on protests held in and around the New Haven, Connecticut, campus last month.
While there was some cheering from other students during the walkout, the demonstration remained unbroken and nonviolent overall. It was not mentioned from the stage.
Yale is only one of the many US universities rocked by demonstrations against the worsening humanitarian situation for the Palestinian people as a result of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip in the wake of the deadly cross-border attack on Jewish communities by Hamas terrorists on October 7.
Hundreds of students protested comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s speech at Duke University’s commencement last week, voicing their support for Israel during the Gaza conflict, and the University of Southern California completely postponed its main graduating event.
A protest strike called by the academic staff at UC Santa Cruz on Monday was a result of the fallout from a violent attack that occurred weeks ago on pro-Palestinian demonstrators camping out at the University of California, Los Angeles. The strike was coordinated by their union.
Additionally on Monday, an Ivy League school in New Hampshire called Dartmouth College’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences narrowly decided to censure president Sian Beilock for her choice to summon police to break up a pro-Palestinian encampment on May 1. This information was provided by a college spokesman.
89 people were arrested as a result of the police operation, and some people were injured.
Student action has primarily targeted the financial relationships that academic institutions have with Israel and U.S. military initiatives that assist the Jewish state.
Pro-Israel activists have responded to demonstrations in support of the Palestinians by labeling them as antisemitic, pushing the limits of free speech rights and hate speech. Police have been called in by numerous schools to put an end to the protests.
Hundreds of unionized academic researchers, graduate teaching assistants, and post-doctoral academics went on strike at UC Santa Cruz on Monday in protest of what they perceived to be unfair labor practices at the university regarding its management of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The strikers are employees of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 4811, which covers around 48,000 workers across all ten University of California campuses as well as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Local 4811 represents roughly 2,000 graduate students and other academic workers at UC Santa Cruz.
The rank-and-file of UAW 4811 decided last week to give union leaders permission to plan a series of “standup” strikes on specific or clusters of UC campuses through the end of June, as opposed to the entire university.
The UAW reports that graduate students have been arrested at multiple University of California campuses as part of the current wave of pro-Palestinian student activists. The Santa Cruz strike was the first union-backed demonstration in support of these activists.
Union leaders noted that the arrest of 210 people at the site of a pro-Palestinian protest camp that was destroyed by police on May 2 at UCLA served as a key catalyst for the walkout.
Before police intervened to put an end to the unrest, a number of pro-Israel supporters had engaged in violent attacks against the encampment and its occupants the previous evening. The brawl lasted for at least three hours. Since then, the institution has started looking into the matter.
In addition, the strikers want graduate students who were detained or facing sanctions for taking part in the demonstrations to be granted amnesty.
In response to protesters momentarily blocking campus entrances in the morning, UC Santa Cruz said in a statement that it had to move its instructional model to remote delivery for the day.
The University of California has requested that the state terminate the strike in an unfair labor practice lawsuit it has filed with the state Public Employee Relations Board.
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