NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — Scores of graduating students staged a walkout from Yale University's commencement exercises on Monday, protesting the Israeli attacks in Gaza, Yale's financial ties to weapons makers and its response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Ivy League campus, as arrests linked to campus demonstrations surpassed the 3,000 mark nationwide.
The walkout began as Yale President Peter Salovey started to announce the traditional college-by-college presentation of candidates for degrees on the grounds of Yale's Old Campus, filled with thousands of graduates in their caps and gowns.
At least 150 students seated near the front of the audience stood up together, turned their backs to the stage and paraded out of the ceremony.
Many of the protesters carried small banners with such slogans as "Books not bombs" and "Divest from war". Some wore red-colored latex gloves symbolizing bloodied hands.
Other signs read: "Drop the charges" and "Protect free speech" in reference to 45 people arrested in a police crackdown last month on demonstrations in and around the New Haven, Connecticut, campus.
The walkout drew a chorus of cheers from fellow students in the crowd, but the protest was otherwise peaceful, without disruption. No mention of it was made from the stage.
Yale is one of dozens of US campuses roiled by protests over the mounting Palestinian humanitarian crisis stemming from Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip following the bloody Oct 7 attack on Jewish settlements by Hamas militants.
The University of Southern California canceled its main graduation ceremony altogether, and dozens of students walked out of Duke University's commencement last week to protest its guest speaker, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who has supported Israel.
Drexel University in Philadelphia threatened to clear an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters on Monday.
Drexel President John Fry said the encampment had disrupted campus life and "cannot be allowed to remain in place".
Fry called on protesters to leave immediately but said in a statement on Monday night that he had authorized "all necessary steps to clear the encampment safely". He did not say when that might happen.
Classes at Drexel were held virtually on Monday as police kept watch over the demonstration on the school's Korman Quad. Many Drexel employees were told to work from home.
The fallout from a violent attack weeks ago on pro-Palestinian activists encamped at the University of California, Los Angeles, reverberated on the UC Santa Cruz campus on Monday as academic workers there staged a protest strike organized by their union.
Also on Monday, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university in New Hampshire, narrowly voted to censure president Sian Beilock, according to a college spokesperson, for her decision to call in police to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment on May 1. The censure vote does not directly endanger Beilock's job.
Agencies via Xinhua
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