Students held placards reading ‘No Grads in Gaza’, ‘Free Palestine. Stanford Divest,’ and ‘Disclose. Divest. Amnesty Now.’
More than 400 students walked out of their graduation ceremony at Stanford University on Sunday in protest at the institution’s handling of calls for divestment in corporations that fuel “Israeli apartheid and genocide.”
As the university’s president Richard Saller “spoke about the ‘challenging year’ administration felt they had to face, Stanford students reminded him of the challenges he and the rest of the administrative body put us through,” the Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) said on Instagram.
With his speech underway, students wearing kaffiyahs and waving Palestinian flags, got up and walked out of the stadium where the ceremony was held. Some held placards reading ‘No Grads in Gaza’, ‘Free Palestine. Stanford Divest,’ and ‘Disclose. Divest. Amnesty Now.’
View this post on Instagram
As with many campuses across the United States in recent months, students at Stanford in California have held pro-Palestine demonstrations and encampments demanding the university financially divest from Israel.
“Administration covertly shut down a 120-day long sit in, arrested 18 students for speaking up at his Family Weekend Q&A , refused to meet with Palestinian students after promising to, and arrested 13 students demanding divestment just 2 weeks ago,” the SJP said.
Saller’s “short-lived legacy will be stained with blood, while the class of 2024 will be marked with continuing the legacy of liberation and the student intifada,” it added.
Alternative Ceremony
Students, alongside their families, who walked out then attended ‘An Alternative Commencement Ceremony Honoring Palestine’. The ceremony included a “poetic grounding, speeches from the faculty and students, and a cap toss” per The People’s Commencement invitation.
🚨BREAKING🚨
📍Stanford University, California
Over 400 Stanford Students walkout of commencement alongside their families to demand divestment and pledge no future donations until then. The legacy of the Class of 2024 will be one that will be repeated until 🇵🇸 is liberated pic.twitter.com/peDs3WxtEw
— Stanford SJP (@StanfordSJP) June 16, 2024
“Stanford continues to be complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people through their investments in corporations that fuel israeli apartheid and war crimes,” the Stanford Against Apartheid in Palestine (SAAP) and SJP said in an Instagram post.
Standford “holds a $36.5 billion endowment – the third largest of all universities,” it said. “We refuse to sit by as our school supports genocide and scholasticide.”
According to the latest figures from Gaza’s Government Media Office, 110 schools and universities have been completely destroyed in Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip, with 321 schools and universities partially destroyed.
‘Free Palestine’ – Students at Columbia Rip Up Diplomas in Solidarity with Gaza (VIDEOS)
Universities Destroyed
Last month, students at New York’s Columbia University ripped up their diplomas, donned handcuffs, and displayed Palestinian flags during their graduation ceremony to protest the institute’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Student protests began at Columbia University in April and soon since spread dozens of universities and colleges across the US, with hundreds of students arrested.
More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, amongst them several university academics, school teachers and students.
US Student Protest Movement Against Gaza Genocide Grows – Explainer
In January, the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said Israel “has targeted academic, scientific, and intellectual figures in the Strip in deliberate and specific air raids on their homes without prior notice.”
“Those targeted include 17 individuals who held professor degrees, 59 who held doctoral degrees, and 18 who held master’s degrees,” Euro-Med stated.
Rising Death Toll
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 37,347 Palestinians have been killed, and 85,372 wounded. Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
Gaza Worshippers Pray amid Ruins, Al-Aqsa Stormed – Eid Al-Adha in Occupied Palestine
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
If Hamas cared one bit about the Palestinian people, they would stop the terrorist attacks on Israeli citezens. They are directly responsible, for what is now happening in Palestine.
Don’t be a DH and stop being brainwashed by Israeli propaganda. You’ve got a brain, research what’s been happening in Occupied Palestine and see what the European Khazarian Zionists have been perpetrating for decades. FFS man, wake the F up!