Columbia Students Boo President Shipman at Graduation

This post was originally published on this site

Columbia Students Boo President Shipman at Graduation 1

I guess the positive note here is that at least this year Columbia University was able to hold a graduation ceremony. Last year it had to be canceled because the school couldn’t clear the quad in time to host it. This year, the graduation turned into an embarrassing moment where the school’s president got to see what four years of educations at Columbia teaches students, i.e. it teaches many of them to be rude and obnoxious social justice warriors.

Advertisement

Claire Shipman, the acting president of Columbia University, was met with a chorus of boos on Wednesday from some of the 12,000 graduates at the school’s main commencement ceremony as she took the podium to deliver remarks…

Ms. Shipman kept talking over the boos, praising the families, teachers and graduates. “Graduates, it is time to give the world your gifts,” she said…

The president noted that many graduates were “mourning” that Mahmoud Khalil, a new graduate who continues to be detained in Louisiana by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, was not there.

Through the jeers, many other graduates remained quiet as the rain soaked them and chants of “Free Palestine” rang out through the student crowd. Ms. Shipman managed to finish her remarks, which focused on the importance of democracy, and went on to officiate the ceremony, conferring degrees on the sea of graduates clad in light-blue gowns seated in front of her.

As ever, the school had issued a warning which was clearly ignored by the hecklers.

Before celebrations for Columbia University’s 271st academic year began Wednesday, school official said, “By attending, all participants and guests agree to follow the responsibilities outlines in University policies, including the Rules of University Conduct, Anti-Discrimination and Discriminatory Standards and Discipline. Those found in violation will be asked to discontinue and may be asked to leave the venue.”

CUAD, the group that organized the protests over the past year, made their intentions clear.

Advertisement

CUAD put out a call on social media ahead of Wednesday’s graduation pledging to disrupt the ceremony.

“WEAR A MASK! GET LOUD! BRING NOISE! NO COMMENCEMENT AS USUAL UNDER GENOCIDE!” the group wrote in an X post Tuesday.

Here’s a bit of what that sounded like:

Some group of people held a protest just off campus.

At least some of them were students (or alumni) because they made a point of burning their diplomas.

Outside Wednesday’s ceremony, which involved about 12,000 graduates and an estimated 25,,000 family and friends, some newly minted anti-Israel grads continued the upheaval by torching their diplomas in protest, loudly booing, chanting and brandishing signs denouncing the Jewish state for alleged “atrocities” committed in its war against Hamas.

Cops were called to the scene to maintain order, but the NYPD could not immediately say who summoned them to the campus.

Their parents must be so proud.

Advertisement

There was another graduation ceremony on Tuesday and the result when Interim President spoke was the same.

Literal terrorism supporters shouting down a university president. Welcome to Columbia.

The “free Mahmoud” chants are a reference to Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the pro-Hamas group who has been in custody in Louisiana for more than two months.

…72 days after his arrest on March 9, Mahmoud Khalil — the country’s most prominent pro-Palestinian-protester-turned-prisoner — is still detained in Jena, La., waiting for a New Jersey federal judge to decide whether he can go free while his immigration case proceeds…

“Mahmoud is understandably frustrated that he was the first to be detained and nine weeks later is still in detention,” said Baher Azmy, one of Mr. Khalil’s lawyers and the legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “But we remain optimistic that the court will see through the patent unconstitutionality of the government’s actions here and order him released soon.”

Legal experts acknowledged that Judge Farbiarz, 51, has proceeded more slowly than other judges. But they emphasized that each judge was different and said they believed it made sense, particularly for an early-career jurist like Judge Farbiarz, to be as thorough as possible.

Advertisement

Notice that the Times refers to him as a “pro-Palestinian-protesters” but doesn’t mention that the group he led clearly and openly supported violence against Israel and Hamas. That might suggest the Trump administration had a point in deporting him and the Times seems to be avoiding that at all costs even though the Times also reported previously on the group’s extremism.

The pro-Palestinian group that sparked the student encampment movement at Columbia University in response to the Israel-Hamas war is becoming more hard-line in its rhetoric, openly supporting militant groups fighting Israel and rescinding an apology it made after one of its members said the school was lucky he wasn’t out killing Zionists.

“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, said in its statement revoking the apology.

The group marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by distributing a newspaper with a headline that used Hamas’s name for it: “One Year Since Al-Aqsa Flood, Revolution Until Victory,” it read, over a picture of Hamas fighters breaching the security fence to Israel. And the group posted an essay calling the attack a “moral, military and political victory” and quoting Ismail Haniyeh, the assassinated former political leader of Hamas.

“The Palestinian resistance is moving their struggle to a new phase of escalation and it is our duty to meet them there,” the group wrote on Oct. 7 on Telegram. “It is our duty to fight for our freedom!”

Advertisement

This is who Mahmoud Khalil is. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in his case. The protests will likely die down over the summer, at least on campus, if only because there are fewer people there.

Posted in Republican News