The prisoners have taken control over the asylum,” said Liora Rez, founder of advocacy group StopAntisemitism, to The Post

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Home / Anti-Israel Protesters Spark Chaos Outside Columbia University Graduation with Diploma-Burning, Aggressive Chants

Anti-Israel Protesters Spark Chaos Outside Columbia University Graduation with Diploma-Burning, Aggressive Chants

May 21, 2025

Mayhem erupted outside Columbia University’s graduation Wednesday as some students burned their diplomas and cops tussled with dozens of rowdy anti-Israel demonstrators, arresting at least two people.

Fired-up anti-Israel students on campus for the Upper Manhattan ceremony also tried to drown out acting President Claire Shipman’s commencement address — with raucous chants of “free Palestine!” and demands for the release of former Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained by ICE agents in March and is currently awaiting deportation.

“The prisoners have taken control over the asylum,” said Liora Rez, founder of advocacy group StopAntisemitism, to The Post.

Outside the commencement ceremony, which involved about 12,000 graduates and an estimated 25,,000 family and friends, some newly minted anti-Israel grads torched their diplomas, loudly booing, chanting and brandishing signs denouncing the Jewish state for alleged “atrocities” committed in its war against Hamas.

Last month, Columbia acquiesced to a list of demands made by President Trump’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, including a campus crackdown on mask-wearing, empowering campus security to make arrests and putting its Middle East studies program under academic receivership.

Cops were called to Wednesday’s chaotic scene to maintain order, although the NYPD could not immediately say who summoned them.

One of the diploma-burners was Jesse Pearce, who received her BA in anthropology from Barnard College last year, according to her LinkedIn.

She was previously arrested for trespassing at Columbia during last spring’s encampment protest on campus and posted her desk appearance ticket from last April — complete with her full address — on her Instagram account.

The Upper Manhattan woman declined to comment to The Post when reached by phone Wednesday night.

Khalil, a spokesman for the radical Columbia University Apartheid Divest group, or CUAD, is slated for deportation by the Trump administration for allegedly engaging in activities “aligned to Hamas.”

CUAD put out a call on social media ahead of Wednesday’s graduation pledging to disrupt the ceremony.

“WEAR A MASK! GET LOUD! BRING NOISE! NO COMMENCEMENT AS USUAL UNDER GENOCIDE!” the group wrote in an X post Tuesday.

Last year’s commencement had to be canceled over safety concerns after an anti-Israel encampment protest engulfed the Morningside Heights campus for weeks.

Ahead of this year’s commencement, an announcement went out admonishing attendees that “audience interruption is not permitted,” and that anyone who does so “may be asked to leave the venue.”

A number of students in the section designated for graduates from Columbia’s sister school, Barnard College, wore keffiyeh headscarves during the ceremony and were among the loudest voices shouting down Shipman’s remarks.

Some of the graduates attempted to silence her as she directly referenced Khalil — with the students screaming, “Free Mahmoud Khalil!”

“We firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else, and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising their right,” Shipman said.

“I know many in our community are mourning the absence of our graduate, Mahmoud Khalil,” she said.

“I want to offer one observation … to keep in mind that you [the students] stuck out in this world, which in Democracy is not inevitable.”

Shipman’s puzzling — and sure-to-be-incendiary — shout-out to Khalil rubbed some students the wrong way.

“‘Mourning?’ Is he dead?” said a Columbia undergrad, who declined to identify herself, sarcastically.

“What about the hostages who are dead? We should be mourning them,” she said of the Israelis slain after being taken captive by Palestinian terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

“I don’t think a day like this she should mention that,” the young woman said of Shipman — before her parents dragged her away to stop her from saying more.

A young man who only identified himself as Ethan A., 22, an engineering graduate, said he also thought it was bizarre Shipman would mention Khalil during her speech.

“I think the crowd was surprised. There was a moment of [stunned] silence,” he said.

“It’s kind of mourning someone who is not dead. He has also graduated, he’s not a student anymore,” he pointed out.

“It’s strange that she’d mention it.”

A university spokesman praised the ceremony as going off with barely a hitch, dismissing the arrests outside campus as a blip in an otherwise successful commencement.

“The University planned and prepared for Commencement for months to ensure a safe and celebratory event for the tens of thousands of attendees who joined us on campus, and we are pleased that thousands of our graduates and their families and guests were able to enjoy the events,” the rep told The Post in a statement to The Post.

“The NYPD managed the small group of protesters outside the gates while the Commencement festivities carried on successfully on campus.”

But Rez offered a suggestion to the elite school for curbing anti-Israel activities on campus.

“Want to fix the problem at Columbia? Expel the troublemakers and revoke the diplomas. It’s not rocket science,” Rez said.

Graduation occurred at a tenuous time for the Ivy League school, which was stripped of about $400 million in federal funds by the Trump administration over allegations it hadn’t done enough to snuff out antisemitism on campus.

Even with its new policies, the school has not been able to put a complete stop to the anti-Israel incidents on campus.

Earlier this month, around 80 masked protesters stormed the university’s Butler Library, which it vandalized with threatening graffiti including, “Columbia Will Burn” on a glass case inside the library.

The takeover led to more than 60 arrests, and the elite school handed down at least 65 interim suspensions to students who took part in the riot, barring 33 others from campus, including several from “affiliated institutions” and an unspecified number of alumni, a school spokesperson told The Post.

https://nypost.com/2025/05/21/us-news/columbia-university-commencement-results-in-arrests-diploma-burning-mayhem-and-chaos/

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