(NewsNation) — Students at George Washington University fear that an upcoming commencement ceremony celebrating years of hard work could be taken away from them if school officials choose to cancel graduation as campus demonstrations over Israel’s war in Gaza continue.
University administrators told NewsNation that the school’s main graduation ceremony, which is expected to draw 25,000 people in the shadows of the Washington Monument on Sunday, is still scheduled to take place.
However, after commencement exercises at Columbia University in New York and the University of Southern California were recently canceled due to protests on those campuses, George Washington students are worried their ceremony could be next.
Pro-Palestinian protests on U.S. campuses have since turned violent since their peaceful beginnings, and there have been over 1,000 arrests.
“It just kind of feels like they are robbing all of us of a moment we’ve all worked so hard for,” one student told NewsNation. “It just kind of feels like a knife in the back from your fellow students. Like, if they really cared about winning people to their cause, they wouldn’t jeopardize ruining a monumental moment for their fellow students.”
Last week, House Republicans visited the George Washington University demonstration encampment and called out D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Pamela Smith for not breaking the site up.
Bowser and Smith are scheduled to testify before a congressional committee Wednesday about their response to the George Washington demonstrations.
The campus encampment has remained in place for nearly the past two weeks. Although school officials say the encampment is illegal and “potentially dangerous,” the mayor’s office told NewsNation that the police have no imminent plans to break up the site or make any arrests.
Yet, that hasn’t entirely calmed seniors’ fears with graduation looming.
Student Cradler Volmar told NewsNation that he would be upset if the ceremony were canceled. He said his high school commencement was eliminated due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that losing another important educational milestone would be tough to take.
“I’ve never had that big, big celebration thing,” Volmar said. “So yeah, I would be a little upset.”
