Hundreds of anti-Israel activists leave Stanford commencement ceremony for ‘People’s Commencement’
‘400+ students walk out to pay their respects to the martyrs of apartheid Israel's genocide against Palestine,’ an anti-Israel group claimed on Instagram.
On June 16, hundreds of anti-Israel students at Stanford University left the university’s commencement to attend their own separate graduation ceremony.
Other students cheered on the protesters as they walked out of the commencement ceremony.
“Today at Stanford’s 133rd commencement ceremony, as President Richard Saller flagrantly discusses the past year at Stanford as a ‘troubled environment,’ 400+ students walk out to pay their respects to the martyrs of apartheid Israel’s genocide against Palestine,” Stanford’s Against Apartheid in Palestine (SAAP) posted to Instagram in a post that was also shared by the group Stanford Faculty for Justice in Palestine.
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“They also walked out against the administration, which has repeatedly demonstrated that they are willing to maintain their complicity in the ongoing genocide,” the group added.
The protesting students then walked to and attended a “People’s Commencement,” where a speaker told them: “You have made history with a record-breaking sit-in and a beautiful encampment. Today, you are graduating with a head held high.”
Stanford’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) posted an announcement for the alternative commencement the day of the event, calling it an “alternative graduation dinner & ceremony” and writing: “Join us to honor and celebrate the People’s Graduation with our arrested comrades who were not able to celebrate on campus. Be in community and celebrate the suspended & arrested graduating students!” The post was also shared by SAAP.
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The SJP also posted to Instagram on June 17, the day after the walkout, writing: “In the aftermath of the most impactful years of Palestine student organizing in decades, National Students for Justice in Palestine invites student organizers and movement partners to deepen our understanding of our current political moment and develop our organizational and leadership skills, with the aim of entrenching the frameworks necessary to sustain and grow the Student Intifada in the coming academic year.”
Campus Reform has contacted Stanford University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
