LAT (“USC cancels ‘main stage’ commencement ceremony“):
USC announced Thursday that it is canceling its main May commencement ceremony, capping a dramatic series of moves that began last week after it informed valedictorian Asna Tabassum, who had been opposed by pro-Israel groups, that she would not be delivering the traditional speech.
In ending the university-wide May 10 graduation ceremony altogether, President Carol Folt aimed to quell the controversy that grew as the school chipped away at core parts of the ritual, drawing criticism from both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel activists.
The cancellation took place amid unrest on university campuses across the nation stemming from the Israel-Hamas war. On Wednesday at a pro-Palestinian encampment at USC, 93 students and off-campus activists were arrested.
“With the new safety measures in place this year, the time needed to process the large number of guests coming to campus will increase substantially,” USC said in its announcement. “As a result, we will not be able to host the main stage ceremony that traditionally brings 65,000 students, families, and friends to our campus all at the same time and during a short window from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.”
[…]
At least 23 satellite graduation ceremonies at USC’s schools and colleges will continue as scheduled, in addition to smaller departmental receptions.
“We understand that this is disappointing; however, we are adding many new activities and celebrations to make this commencement academically meaningful, memorable, and uniquely USC, including places to gather with family, friends, faculty, and staff, the celebratory releasing of the doves, and performances by the Trojan Marching Band,” USC said in a statement.
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Since citing unspecified security threats as the reason for canceling Tabassum’s speech, USC has seen a series of on-campus protests, including this week’s pro-Palestinian encampment.
University officials had followed their cancellation of Tabassum’s speech by calling off a speech by film director Jon M. Chu and appearances on the main stage by honorary doctorate recipients, including tennis legend Billie Jean King, saying they wanted to “keep the focus on our graduates.”
WaPo (“Secret meetings, social chatter: How Columbia students sparked a nationwide revolt“):
When police raided a protester encampment at Columbia University last week, the students at Yale were ready, tracking every minute of the chaos that followed with their smartphones on social media.
If students at the New York City Ivy League school were going to risk arrest, they would, too. By the next morning, Yale demonstrators had pitched their own tents. On a Zoom call that day, more than 200 students from dozens of other colleges across the country were strategizing on how they could replicate Columbia’s protest.
“We talked about what it was like to recruit people and join, and what it meant to stand in solidarity together, and what it would look like if these camps started popping up everywhere,” said Soph Askanase, 21-year-old junior at Barnard College who was arrested at Columbia.
What followed was the start of what historians now call one of the most consequential student uprisings the nation has seen in recent times. Though officials hope the tensions calm when classes end next month, the protests have become a crisis for college administrators struggling to rein in demonstrations while juggling competing demands to combat antisemitic rhetoric and permit students’ right to free speech.
“I think the ivory tower stands on shaky ground,” said Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. “Its foundations are far more fragile and vulnerable than it might seem, and there are big cracks in the facade.”
Though the demonstrations have made headlines across the globe in recent days, they are the culmination of months of activism and earlier tensions on campus. Protests began on college campuses within days of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Students then started organizing around a particular demand: university divestment from weapons manufacturers. Their activism steadily escalated throughout the spring, as students employed increasingly aggressive tactics after saying they got little or no response from administrators.
The growing uprising has been supercharged by social media and smartphones, which allowed students to quickly communicate with one another and replicate tactics in ways unthinkable in earlier university movements.
Historians like David Cortright, a professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, say the demonstrations already compare to several other large protest movements over the last 60 years, including the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa and the 2011 Occupy Wall Street demonstrations over corporate greed.
But unlike the protests of decades past, college administrators have fewer tools at their disposal to assuage demonstrator demands. Experts say student requests for divestment are not only impractical but also are likely to yield little if any real benefit. More broadly, the students could face a challenge in trying to build alliances. Some would-be demonstrators have been deterred by tactics and chants some view as antisemitic.
WaPo (“Criticism, praise of Texas governor after dramatic use of troopers on protesters“):
As word got out that pro-Palestinian protesters were planning to occupy a lawn on the University of Texas campus, Gov. Greg Abbott made a dramatic move: calling in more than 100 state troopers with orders to clear them out.
With that decision, which led to dozens of arrests amid video of riot-clad troopers on campus, Abbott sought to reassure his party — and the rest of the country — that Texas would not countenance a replay of the extended protester camp at New York’s Columbia University.
It was the latest move by Abbott (R) to position himself as one of the most assertive red-state governors in America, eager for a fight with the political left under the national spotlight. But the aggressiveness of the response has alarmed students, faculty, Democrats and even some Republicans who have previously sided with Abbott in his crusades to protect free speech on college campuses.
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On Thursday, however, Abbott found himself in a storm of broader scrutiny. Critics were quick to note, for example, that Abbott proudly signed a law in 2019 that aimed to protect free speech on college campuses by guaranteeing anyone can protest in common outdoor areas as long as they are not breaking the law or disrupting the regular functioning of the school. That is precisely what those arrested Wednesday were doing, they said.
Prosecutors also dropped charges against 46 of the 57 protesters arrested Wednesday, citing “deficiencies” their lawyers had challenged in the probable cause affidavits submitted as part of their arrests, according to Diana Melendez, a spokeswoman for Travis County Attorney’s Office.
“We will continue to individually review all cases presented to our office to determine whether prosecution is factually and legally appropriate,” Melendez said.
State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D), whose district includes the Austin campus, said the politics involved in the response “is not going to let this go, and that’s deeply, deeply troubling.”
“I’ve not yet heard any evidence of property damage or personal injury, and so the response — the police response — seems to have been in anticipation of something that didn’t happen, that ultimately didn’t happen,” Eckhardt said.
Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the rationale for his action nor criticism of it. But on social media, the governor responded approvingly to the law enforcement response, saying the protesters “belong in jail” and that any students taking part in “hate-filled, antisemitic protests” at public colleges should be expelled.
The latter reflected Abbott’s issuance last month of an executive order requiring public universities to revise their free speech policies to curb the “sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts” on campuses.
On Thursday, protesters said the show of force ordered by Abbott was striking but not surprising.
“Gov. Abbott is taking a very political opportunity to enforce his agenda, a very right-wing agenda focused on control, not on governance,” said Chelsea Collier, a doctoral student at the school of information and a native Texan who spent her entire academic career at UT.
Were it happening in a vacuum, I would naturally be much more critical of Abbott, who comes across as a total neanderthal. Just in these three reports, though, we have an Ivy League institution, another top-tier private university, and an elite public flagship. And none of the leaders across the board have figured out how to balance speech rights and public safety.
My natural instincts are in direct opposition here. I’m both a near-absolutist in free expression—especially in the context of higher education and the principle of academic freedom—and yet also a pretty staunch law and order guy. Students and/or their parents are paying tuition to attend classes and enjoy the other aspects of the university experience and are being denied that by these protests. Additionally, at least in the Columbia case, there have been enough incidents of antisemitism to create a genuine public safety threat.
I tend to balance those two instincts in much the way the Supreme Court has: by creating time, place, and manner standards. Students and professors have a right to express their views on issues of public policy and there are few more important debates right now than over the war going on in Gaza. But, frankly, lectures, symposia, editorials, journal articles, and the like are much more useful and appropriate ways for members of an academic community to do that than are riots and campouts.
