As widespread protests against Israel's war in Gaza engulf campuses across the United States, the graduating class of 2024 is once again witnessing world events upend their senior year.
This is the same class of students whose final semester of high school was turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic, with lockdowns in the U.S. starting in March 2020. Four years later, as pro-Palestinian demonstrators face suspensions, arrests, and threats of expulsion on campuses across the country, the end of their college experience has also taken an abrupt turn. While these two events are markedly different, students who spoke to Teen Vogue say their hopes for a “normal” school experience keep collapsing in the face of global crises.
“I had an online commencement ceremony when I graduated high school in 2020. Last week, many of my classes were moved online or canceled. I’m not jaded by this after a whole year of online classes, and a semester’s worth of social distancing and masking,” said Eli, a 22-year-old senior at the University of Southern California, which has canceled its mainstage graduation altogether, citing safety concerns.
Like other students Teen Vogue spoke to for this story, Eli asked to use only his first name so he could speak candidly about the situation on campus. USC had already decided to cancel Muslim student Asna Tabassum’s valedictorian speech over what provost Andrew Guzman called “substantial risks relating to security and disruption at the commencement.” Tabassum, who received criticism from pro-Israel groups on campus, said in a statement that she was “profoundly disappointed that the university is succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice.” Pro-Palestinian demonstrations continue on USC’s campus, where police have detained protestors.
“There is no way not to be aware of how tense the times are,” Eli said. “It is almost reminiscent of the USC COVID policies, with limited campus access. We must present Student IDs to enter campus and only two access points are open. At night, when [the Department of Public Safety] and [Los Angeles police department] show up in full force, the environment changes for the worse.” Though he has not participated in the demonstrations, he has delivered food and water to friends who have.
“I’m almost indifferent to all of the pageantry, but I understand the significance of the event being a formal closure to my college experience,” Eli said in an email, stressing that he was more disappointed by the school’s decision to cancel Tabassum’s speech. “My main concern is that our valedictorian will not speak, which is a fundamental attack on the (much deserved) honor bestowed upon her.”
On the East Coast, Columbia University has seen a massive police presence on the school’s Morningside campus. On April 30, officers descended on Hamilton Hall, a campus building that students had occupied, forcibly clearing the building and the encampment outside. The university had already moved classes online for the rest of the semester following days of protests that had left some pro-Israel students and faculty on campus feeling frightened due to reports of antisemitic language. (The students behind Columbia’s encampment, some of whom are Jewish, have denounced the actions of “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us.”)
In Texas on April 24, where the Palestine Solidarity Committee at the University of Texas at Austin organized a protest, more than 50 people were arrested after police entered on foot, by bike, motorcycle, and horseback. Another 34 students were arrested at an anti-war demonstration on campus several days later. And at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on April 30, 36 protesters were detained and six were arrested at the campus Triangle Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
As the number of campuses with police activity grows and as more schools make plans for dealing with demonstrations during graduation, students describe feeling tense, frustrated, and even “numb.” Many students involved in the demonstrations say they’ve grown accustomed to protesting over the past few years and say the activity this spring is no different. Some lament a hostile environment on campus and many are upset with administrators dispatching police to quell the demonstrations.
“The demonstrations over the past year, and this past week in particular, distill what has been most important about college to me: Me and the people I love standing up together for what we believe in, caring for one another, and keeping each other safe,” said Sheena, a 21-year-old senior at UNC Chapel Hill, studying information science and comparative literature. She had joined a school walkout for the prevention of gun violence after the 2018 Parkland school shooting, Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and anti-Starbucks protests over the company’s reaction to unionization efforts. “The police presence has felt violent and hateful. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to be up against police, to look them in the eyes,” she said of her recent participation in the pro-Palestine demonstrations.
Though Sheena said, “graduating high school amidst COVID was obviously terrible,” she believes today’s circumstances are quite different. “Bringing police onto campus is a choice.… These choices are intentionally made by the administration to escalate, so I feel much angrier about the decision to bring riot police onto campus to assault and surveil students [rather] than the presence of tents on the lawn or a pandemic that shut down the country.”
In an email to Teen Vogue, a spokesperson for UNC Chapel Hill said, “Law enforcement officials were on hand to enforce state law and university policies."
Devon, a 22-year-old first-generation student at the University of Texas at Austin, hasn’t participated in any of the demonstrations on campus. But as an ally of the demonstrators, he said, “The general vibe of campus has been super tense lately. It's really disheartening to walk to class and see your classmates, peers, friends, getting maced, getting arrested, being thrown on the ground,” Devon said.
As an on-campus tour guide, he was showing prospective students and families around amid major police activity on campus last week. “The main message that I tried to give them was that coming to a big university like UT, the great thing about it is that you get to have big conversations with people you disagree with and that's kind of our mantra here,” he said. “I'd like to think that it shows the power of our students willing to use their voice at UT.”
Duncan, a 22-year-old senior at USC, said that while the demonstrations (he hasn’t participated out of “fear” for his safety) haven’t impacted his academic and social life, the administration’s handling of the situation has. “It has been USC's decision to lock down campus, restrict entry and exit to two inconvenient locations, and change operating hours without informing its students or faculty that has impacted my academic and social life. They have locked buildings and classrooms and changed library hours without warning, even as finals begin this week,” he said.
Reached for comment, a USC spokesperson directed Teen Vogue to public statements about campus access points and a campus updates page.
“It's just kind of unbelievable,” said Liza, 21, and a senior at the University of Indiana, where police detained people at a pro-Palestine demonstration. Liza is Jewish and has participated in counter-protests for Israel. “It almost feels like we're numb to it. The last time we were graduating, there was another very serious matter that was occurring,” she said, referring to the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 that she participated in.
“In high school, my graduation didn’t really matter. I have vivid memories of it, but I just didn't feel like it was that big of a deal and kind of similarly now, my parents are so excited to come up for graduation, but it just feels like my life is absorbed by the news,” she said. “I also feel like it's causing a lot of division with graduation coming up,” Liza said. “I want to feel united with my senior class and that's just not how I feel at all.”
“It's obviously a crazy time to be graduating, but I think that's just kind of what we've come to expect as Gen Z folks. In high school, we were doing all the violence prevention organizing and climate organizing, and then the pandemic, and then the George Floyd uprising our senior year. I had prom canceled because of the pandemic; I was active in organizing for racial justice,” said Jonah Gottlieb, 22, a senior at UC Berkeley, where at least 150 tents have been pitched. “This just feels to me like a continuation of that… I’m a history major and I turned in my senior thesis on Friday from my tent,” he said.
Priya, 23, and a senior at George Washington University in DC, missed her “optional” thesis presentation because she was in the encampment on campus. “It was something I was really looking forward to. I've worked really hard on my thesis and it was something I've been very proud of,” said Priya, who wrote her thesis on “public culture in occupied Kashmir and Palestine,” she said. “Because it’s about Palestine, it felt like almost a betrayal to leave the encampment and go away from it.”
Priya took a gap year and while she didn’t graduate high school amid the pandemic, she started her freshman year of college during it, online at home. “It kind of comes full circle,” she said. “I struggled to find community at my university. Being part of this encampment has made me feel like I am actually a part of a community.”
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