Columbia University cancels main commencement after protests that roiled campus for weeks

FILE - Pro-Israel demonstrators gather for the"Bring Them Home Now" rally outside the Columbia University, April 26, 2024, in New York. Pro-Palestinian protesters have dominated university quads in the last two weeks, shutting down colleges and clashing with riot police. But theres been a notable scarcity of student rallies in solidarity with Israelis.

“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 at the Ivy League school in upper Manhattan said in a statement.

Columbia had already canceled in-person classes. More than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia’s green were arrested last month, and similar encampments sprouted up at universities around the country as schools struggled with where toThe protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages.

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