There will be no main graduation ceremony at Columbia University after weeks of pro-Palestinian protests, but smaller ceremonies will be held.
School officials made the announcement Monday, according to the Associated Press.
“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,” officials said in a statement.
Students favor the smaller ceremonies.
“Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families,” officials said. “They are eager to cross the stage to applause and family pride and hear from their school’s invited guest speakers.”
Most of the ceremonies that would’ve taken place in the south lawn of the main campus — where encampments were taken down last week — will take place at Columbia’s sports complex, officials said.
In-person classes at Columbia have been canceled.
More than 200 pro-Palestinian protesters who were part of the encampment or who occupied a university building, were arrested.
Columbia was not the only campus site occupied with protesters.
The University of Southern California canceled its main graduation ceremony, but allowed other commencement activities to happen.
Other universities have held their graduation ceremonies, but had more security in place.
The University of Michigan’s ceremony was interrupted by chanting Saturday. In Boston, some students waved small Palestinian or Israeli flags during a graduation ceremony for Northeastern University Sunday in Fenway Park.
The protests are due to the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.
The student protesters want their schools to divest from companies that do business with Israel or contribute to the war effort, per the AP.
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 Hamas-run Health Ministry.
