Daily Beast highlights AIM Harvard billboard in piece on commencement walkout
May 24, 2024
Harvard Sparks 1,000-Person Commencement Walkout After Barring 13 From Graduating
A wave of protests that culminated in a 1,000-person walkout marked Harvard University’s commencement ceremonies Thursday, sparked by its highest governing body’s decision to deny a faculty-led action to let 13 students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests walk at their graduation.
Beyond the gates where graduates lined up, three people held a banner reading “Stop the Genocide in Gaza” as several graduates in cap and gown donned keffiyehs and other displays of support for Palestine. Earlier Thursday morning, students in support of the 13 graduates who had been barred from walking in the ceremony rallied with signs like “This Jew Stands With Palestine” and “Let Them Graduate.”
Harvard Occupied Out of Palestine, the student coalition that organized the university’s encampment, distributed copies of a parody newspaper titled The Harvard Crimson detailing its demands for divestment from Israel and accusing the school newspaper of refusing to talk about Palestine. The move mimics a similar satirical paper that targeted The New York Times, accusing the paper of pro-Israel bias and deriding it as “The New York War Crimes.”
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Counterprotesters funded planes over Harvard Yard that trailed the slogan “Jewish Lives Matter.US” and flew the Israeli and American flags high in the sky, the Harvard Crimson reported, as the slow creep of commencement processions began. Outside the Yard, trucks bearing the names and faces of students who protested for Palestine circled the square, beneath a banner declaring them “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” The trucks were financed by Accuracy in Media, which has been doxxing students all year, the Crimson reported.