May 4, 2024 - Campus protest updates

Pro-Palestinian protesters were removed from University of Michigan's main commencement ceremony after briefly interrupting the proceedings Saturday.

No one was arrested, according to Melissa Overton, the university's deputy police chief and public information officer.

Carlos Del Toro, the 78th US secretary of the Navy, was addressing the crowd at the time of the interruption and emphasized the importance of the right to protest peacefully.

The protesters were removed shortly after.

Photos from the commencement show that planes also flew banners with opposing messages over the ceremony. One read, "Divest from Israel," while the other said, "Stand with Israel."

Some context: Commencements at the University of Michigan are ongoing with programs hosting separate ceremonies with distinguished speakers. Saturday's massive event at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor was the spring graduation ceremony for the whole university.

There will be designated areas for protests outside ceremony venues throughout the weekend, the University of Michigan said on its website, noting all commencement events will include security screenings, prohibit banners and flags, and be monitored by volunteers who will immediately “respond to disruptions, beginning with warnings.”

A ceremony for the university's School of Music, Theatre and Dance was also interrupted Friday.

This post has been updated to reflect information from the university's police department.

In a statement to the University of California, Irvine campus community on Friday, Chancellor Howard Gillman said the university will continue to negotiate with pro-Palestinians on campus over issues of divestment.

Gillman said discussions were ongoing last week, with the university presenting a proposal to student leaders on Wednesday and receiving a counterproposal Thursday. He expressed his concern over some of the requests included in the counterproposal, "which were not part of (the students') initial demands."

"The counterproposal calls for ending numerous external partnerships that support our students through scholarships and facilitate long-standing research collaborations," Gillman said. "It also demands an end to a wide-range of academic and research collaborations with Israeli organizations and individuals. This would violate fundamental principles of academic freedom and would require us to discriminate based on a person’s nationality, which goes against our commitment to anti-discrimination and our principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion."

The majority of student protesters who oppose Israel’s military action in Gaza have demanded their universities sell investments in companies with financial ties to Israel, although the scope of the demands varies by school.

Gillman added that negotiations will continue on Monday, and thanked student protesters for ensuring that their encampment " remains peaceful and minimally disruptive of university activities."

President Joe Biden’s support for the Israeli military offensive in Gaza mixed with student anger over police crackdowns on anti-war campus protests are complicating the work of Democratic youth groups trying to engage young voters ahead of this year's election.

Last week, the College Democrats of America released a statement accusing the White House of employing a "cold shoulder strategy for its own base and all Americans who want to see an end to this war.”

Only 18% of young voters approved of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, according to a Harvard/Institute of Politics poll conducted in March.

On Thursday, Biden condemned what he referred to as “disorder” in the anti-war demonstrations on college campuses across the United States. He said he supported “the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos.”

Asked if the protests had led him to change his thinking on the conflict, Biden answered, “No.”

Read more here.

To understand why so many colleges suddenly have students occupying parts of their campuses, you have to go back to two weeks ago, on April 18, when Columbia University called in the police to bust up an encampment that pro-Palestinian protesters had set up just a day earlier.

In doing so, Columbia’s leadership threw out the playbook for managing protests that universities have honed for decades to keep students safe.

Chief among those tactics: delaying and distracting.

Academics are accustomed to seeing those tactics deployed, especially when students are days away from the end of the semester — a natural time for demonstrations to lose steam. But that didn’t happen at Columbia.

The shockingly aggressive intervention by police is also why, overnight, dozens of campuses across the country saw students stage their own encampments in solidarity.

When non-violent protesters are met with intense physical suppression, “that tends to create a kind of outrage effect that then generates more protests,” Jackson said.

Continue reading for the full analysis of Columbia's response to protests.

Graduation ceremonies are set to take place at colleges and universities in the US this weekend after weeks of protests that saw more than 2,100 people arrested on more than 40 campuses across at least 25 states.

The wave of pro-Palestinian protests and college officials' concern for safety have already started affecting commencements. In Michigan, protesters interrupted the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance commencement ceremony Friday, according to a video from a reporter with CNN affiliate Richmond Times-Dispatch.  

And, the University of Vermont's president announced Friday that Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, will no longer deliver the commencement address. Some of the protesters on the campus had called on the university to rescind its invitation to Thomas-Greenfield.

All this comes weeks after the University of Southern California decided to rescind valedictorian Asna Tabassum's invitation to speak at its ceremony. USC now plans hold a “family graduate celebration” on May 9, the school announced Friday, just over a week after canceling the main graduation ceremony.

Here are the latest headlines:

Updates from New York

Updates from California

Universities around the world

Updates in Illinois and Georgia

Protests impact on the 2024 election

Campus operations are expected to resume "in full" on Monday at the University of California, Los Angeles, according to a university release.

Campus operations will remain limited — and classes will be remote — through the weekend, the university said.

Student affairs staff will be on campus "to support our students," the school said, adding that people should avoid the Royce Quad area. The quad was the location of violence this week when several dozen men repeatedly attacked UCLA's pro-Palestinian protest encampment late Tuesday with crude weapons, according to video provided to CNN.

More than 200 people were arrested Thursday on suspicion of resisting orders to disperse from the now-dismantled encampment on the campus, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block saidThursday.

UCLA classes were canceled Wednesday, and classes were remote starting Thursday.

Nearly all pro-Palestinian protests rocking college campuses across the US have called for universities to divest from Israel in some form.

What would divestment look like?

Divestment is the opposite of investment.

Many universities have an endowment, which is donated funds generally invested in stocks, bonds and other financial instruments to help the university earn money.

At Columbia, a group of students wants the college to divest its $13.6 billion endowment from any company linked to Israel, including Microsoft and Amazon.

Protesters at other schools, such as Cornell and Yale, want their universities to stop investing in weapons manufacturers.

What are university officials saying?

On Monday, Columbia’s administration reiterated that it would not divest from Israel. Last week, the University of California also said divestment wouldn’t happen.

But some colleges are willing to talk with protesters.

Christina Paxson, president of Brown University, sent a letter to demonstrators saying she would agree to hear a divestment proposal if the school’s encampment were disbanded, according to the student-run newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald.

They've been here before.

Columbia students protesting South Africa's apartheid racial segregation policy in the 1980s called on the school to sever its financial ties with companies doing business in the country.

Columbia eventually voted to sell most of its stock in South Africa-connected companies. Other colleges followed suit.

Read more here.

A core demand over by the pro-Palestinian student groups at Columbia University was for the school to withdraw investment funds from what they describe as companies profiting from Israel’s war in Gaza.

Columbia’s endowment is worth $13.6 billion and is managed by a university-owned investment firm.

The request from a coalition of student groups behind the movement includes divesting endowment funds from several weapons manufacturers and tech companies that do business with Israel’s government.

The group has described those companies as profiting “from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine.” Israel denies accusations of genocide.

This is not the first time such demands have been made. 

In 2000, the university established an advisory committee on socially responsible investing, made up of students, faculty and alumni, to provide feedback to the managers of its endowment investments.

Columbia now lists five areas where it refrains from investing: tobacco, private prison operations, thermal coal, Sudan and fossil fuels — all decisions made in the past decade.

Columbia was also the first Ivy League university to divest from South Africa, and various other colleges followed suit.

In 2015, Columbia became the first US university to divest from private prison companies after a student campaign raising concerns about human rights abuses.

A fossil fuel divestment proposal was approved by Columbia’s Board of Trustees in early 2021. The policy includes a commitment not to invest in “companies whose primary business is the exploration and production of fossil fuels.” Columbia’s announcement was followed by similar commitments at other Ivy League universities.

Here's more about student's pushing for divestment.

Protesters interrupted the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance commencement ceremony Friday, according to a video from a reporter with CNN affiliate Richmond Times-Dispatch.  

Several protesters entered the Hill Auditorium with pro-Palestinian signs and flags. A person was heard yelling "get out" as the protesters walked through the auditorium. 

Police arrived soon after the incident, according to the Times-Dispatch.

CNN has reached out to the University of Michigan and its School of Music, Theatre & Dance for comment.  

Later Friday evening, a large group of protesters were met with police on the University of Michigan’s campus on Friday evening. The group was outside the Museum of Art on campus and was heard chanting while interacting with police.

Some context: Commencements at the University of Michigan are ongoing with programs hosting separate ceremonies with distinguished speakers. Spring graduation is scheduled for the whole university on Saturday at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. There will be a designated area for protests outside ceremony venues, the University of Michigan said on its website, noting all commencement events will include security screenings, prohibit banners and flags, and be monitored by volunteers who will immediately “respond to disruptions, beginning with warnings.”