Mahmoud Khalil, the leader of the pro-Palestinian student demonstration who is now in custody, was one prominent and well-reported absentee from Columbia University’s graduation ceremony on Wednesday. Students screamed, “Boo… Shame on you!” when Clare Shipman, the acting president of the esteemed institution in New York City, ascended the microphone.
For the last 18 months, Columbia has been the scene of protests demanding a stop to the slaughter in Gaza. More recently, the Trump administration has jailed student demonstrators there. For more than two months after his school activity, Khalil, one of the most well-known organisers of countrywide campus demonstrations against Israel’s attack in Gaza, has been held by US authorities.
He has been designated for deportation despite being a permanent resident of the United States. Several students chose to wear keffiyehs as scarves or in place of graduation hats in support of the Palestinian cause.
Shipman greeted 16,000 recent graduates as they left a school still under attack from the Trump administration, as light rain and a wet, cold descended.We are adamant that our overseas students should not be singled out by the government for expressing their right to free expression since they have the same rights as everyone else,” Shipman stated.
She remarked, “And let me also say that I know many in our community today are mourning the absence of our graduate, Mahmoud Khalil,” before making a strong case for democracy, calling it “the essential work of your generation.
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