There is a clear undertone of tension on the campus of Washington University as students finish finals and prepare for commencement, Sylvie Raymond, a senior who is graduating this coming Monday, tells RFT.
“I'm a little nervous to see how everything plays out and what measures the school takes,” Raymond says. “And obviously, there's always the thought in the back of my mind, like, are they going to cancel graduation?”
Some schools that have seen student protests have canceled their main commencement or split it into smaller ceremonies, including Columbia University and the University of Southern California. Emory University moved its ceremony.
“The culture of fear and fear of getting suspended, doxxed, and just generally having repercussions for voicing your political beliefs is very palpable,” Raymond says. “And that is definitely troubling for a university that ostensibly should promote the free transmission and expression of ideas.”
After protests roiled the campus on April 27, Wash U moved swiftly to suspend the students involved and bar the faculty members from campus. At least one student swept up in the mass arrests told the Post-Dispatch her degree is being withheld while her case makes its way through the criminal justice system, though she will be allowed to attend commencement.
Wash U has also sent students additional guidance on what to expect for its commencement ceremony May 13. Now, among other precautions, graduates will be subject to inspections of their regalia.
In an email sent to people attending the university’s Law School Recognition Ceremony and subsequently shared with RFT, the university tells students, “Please be ready to unzip your regalia before and during the All-University Commencement and Law Recognition Line-ups.”
The university will also require tickets to attend the Arts & Sciences undergraduate ceremony this Sunday and the university-wide commencement on Monday, according to updated guidance on the university’s website. These tickets were sent directly to graduates to distribute. Chancellor Andrew Martin has begged students not to protest at the ceremony.
Wash U hasn’t responded to several emails from the RFT seeking further clarity on what the administration planned to check for at commencement, including whether graduating students would be allowed to wear keffiyehs. The traditional Palestinian headdresses have become a symbol of solidarity and resistance adopted by protestors as Israel's attacks on Gaza continue. In response, people wearing them have been detained in France and Germany, and elsewhere targeted with violence, including the shooting in Vermont of two Palestinian students wearing them, according to Reuters.
The university has also fenced off the campus and, on May 6, added tarp around some of the fencing, supposedly "in order to ensure pedestrian safety and keep the area clear while crews are setting up a stage and other structures associated with the post-Commencement celebration." University-issued IDs are now required to enter the Danforth campus.
Raymond says that at first she thought the fence was some kind of joke, but then she began to see it as a wall.
“It’s very troubling,” she says. “ I think it really flies in the face of this idea, or this notion that Wash U builds up about them being in St. Louis for St. Louis. I think this is very blatantly showing that that is not the case that this campus was never for the Greater St. Louis Community.”
In the days leading up to commencement, activists plan to have a standing protest at the corner of Lindell and Skinker in Forest Park just across from campus. These “Post-Up for Palestine” demonstrations will begin at 3:30 each afternoon and will include teach-ins and art builds, Resist Wash U has posted on social media.
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