San Diego State segregated graduations include ‘transborder’ ceremony in Mexico

San Diego State University hosted or will host numerous segregated graduations this year. 

This Thursday marked the forty-fifth time the school has hosted its “Annual Black Baccalaureate Ceremony,” which took place at Lincoln High School in San Diego. 

[RELATED: Syracuse Lavender Graduation will honor those who formed a ‘positive LGBTQ climate on campus’]

“The Black Baccalaureate is an instrumental piece of the Black community in San Diego,” Shellie Stamps, who graduated from the school’s Africana Studies program in 2017, said. “The ceremony serves as a beautiful space to celebrate our Black scholars and have their excellence be affirmed by the community.” 

The Black Baccalaureate is not the only identity-based graduation ceremony at SDSU. The school’s ninth annual “Xicanx/Latinx Graduation” is scheduled for June 14, and “[s]elf-identified Latinx students graduating with a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Sciences, Master of Arts, Master of Sciences, Medicine Doctorate, and Ph.D. are eligible to participate.” 

SDSU’s Pride Center and the LGBTQ+ Studies Program also hosted the fifteenth annual “Lavender Graduation” for LGBTQ-identifying students on April 26. 

The graduation event marked the end of the Pride Center’s “Trans Week of Empowerment,” which featured events like a “Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) Info Session,” a “Queer Crafternoon,” and a “Name & Gender Marker Change Clinic.” 

[RELATED: ‘The power of queer peership’: Colgate University holds segregated ‘Lavender Graduation’ for LGBTQ-identifying students]

Other segregated graduation ceremonies at SDSU included a “Native Graduation” and a “Transborder Graduation in Tijuana.”

Other schools that have held segregated graduations include the University of Massachusetts, the University of Maryland, and St. John’s University. 

Campus Reform contacted San Diego State University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.