Citing “possible concerns or threats to the community,” American University in Washington abruptly canceled a Students for Justice in Palestine event titled “Debunking Zionist Lies Workshop.”

The event, which was shut down on Tuesday just hours before it was set to begin, was advertised online with a photo of a masked individual wielding a slingshot and the call to “Smash Zionism,” which the university said contained “imagery and language that contributed to the safety concerns.”

“This event did not undergo the necessary safety assessment,” American University wrote in a statement on Tuesday, announcing that the event would not take place that evening as advertised. “When evaluating safety conditions for campus events, AUPD examines possible concerns or threats to the community, the event organizers, attendees, or outside guests. We will work with student organizations to ensure they are aware of and engage in the necessary safety assessments for events.” 

The statement also noted that “the social media post about the event contained imagery and language that contributed to the safety concerns about the event, does not represent AU’s values and creates discord in our community.”

The post — which was not submitted to or reviewed by the university prior to its posting — is under evaluation, the university said. 

American University’s chapter of SJP has been under disciplinary probation since April 2024, following an indoor protest which the university had banned. 

The crackdown at AU comes as dozens of universities nationwide have started to respond to antisemitic incidents — particularly those stemming from SJP and affiliated anti-Israel groups — with a harder line since the Trump administration issued executive orders aimed at deterring campus antisemitism. 

One of the most stringent responses to anti-Israel campus activity came earlier this week when Barnard College expelled two second-semester seniors who last month disrupted a History of Modern Israel class.  

At last month’s Honors Convocation at the University of Michigan, one of the first events of the school’s spring graduation festivities, President Santa Ono — dressed in full academic regalia — stepped up to the stage to address the university’s soon-to-be graduates.

Almost immediately, a chorus of boos broke out. Several dozen students rose, holding signs that read “Free Palestine” and “Ceasefire Now.” Ono was at the lectern for less than two minutes before he sat down, unable to continue speaking over the students’ shouting. The ceremony ended abruptly, and early. 

The event highlights the challenge universities face as they prepare for the prospect of anti-Israel protests at university graduations across the country this spring. While the frequency of protests has diminished since last fall, fallout over the Israel-Hamas war continues to roil U.S. campuses. That university administrators have responded to protests that violate campus policies, such as the one at Michigan, with inconsistent enforcement of university codes of conduct raises questions about how they will handle similarly disruptive actions at graduation events. 

Although no protests have been announced yet, some campus activists are already calling on pro-Palestinian supporters to wear keffiyehs and bring Palestinian flags to graduation. But whether graduating students are willing to disrupt graduation ceremonies to make a political statement, as they did at Michigan — and risk being kicked out of the event — remains to be seen. 

“There’s a rich, long tradition of students especially, but sometimes guests, engaging in protests in commencement exercises,” said Mark Rotenberg, vice president for university initiatives and general counsel at Hillel International, which has been advising university administrators about heading off disruptive protests.

Usually, students who want to make a point at graduation do so silently. Often, they write a political message on their cap or turn their backs to object to a particular speaker. Sometimes they hold up signs, such as last year at Howard University, where 12 students silently protested President Joe Biden’s address with posters that said things like, “Biden and [Vice President Kamala] Harris don’t care about Black people.”

Occasionally, they even stage a silent walkout, such as students at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., last year who protested Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who delivered the commencement address. The phenomenon is widespread enough that, in 2014, CNN published an op-ed about “the smarter way to protest college speakers,” after three universities reversed course and changed their commencement speakers to respond to student backlash.

Many schools have not yet named commencement speakers for their 2024 graduations. But so far, it appears that prominent universities are choosing not to tap political or controversial speakers to deliver the commencement address.

“You just see people invite the most bland, noncontroversial, I guess, or non-political speakers out there. People like Donald Trump, or Joe Biden, or other controversial figures don’t really get invited anymore to these events,” said Zach Greenberg, senior program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Notre Dame students walked out during former Vice President Mike Pence’s speech in 2017. (The White House and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment asking if Biden, Harris, Secretary of State Tony Blinken or other senior administration officials had been invited to deliver any commencement addresses this year.)

There’s also a possibility that graduation speakers — either invited guests or student speakers who were selected by the university — may decide to use the opportunity to make a political point. Recent student speakers at the City University of New York’s law school graduation condemned Zionism in their speeches. The university responded by entirely eliminating student speakers from its official commencement events. (A CUNY spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about its plans for graduation this year.)

“Many universities will say to the student speakers who are invited to speak at commencement, ‘You’re not supposed to speak about controversial political topics in your speech,’” said Rotenberg, a former general counsel at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Minnesota. “They’ll say that because the intention of the event, the purpose of your being invited to speak, is not to offer your own personal views on politics but to celebrate the graduation of your peers.” That doesn’t mean the students always listen. 

“The real concern,” Rotenberg added, “is that there will be disruptions so that a congressman, for example, can’t give his speech, or an honorary degree recipient cannot receive their degree, because they are tenured at an Israeli institution of higher education, or that other Israelis in attendance will be badgered, harassed or even attacked.” 

In recent months, university enforcement of policies regarding disruptive protests that attempt to shut down speakers has been lackluster and uneven. While speaking at the University of Maryland, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) was shouted down by hecklers who called him “complicit in genocide.” 

“What you saw play out actually was democracy and free speech and academic freedom,” UMD President Darryll Pines, who attended the event and made the decision to shut it down, said later. When asked whether vocal protestors would also be allowed to disrupt the school’s graduation ceremonies, a university spokesperson shared a link to a Monday email from the school’s general counsel outlining UMD’s free expression policy. 

“No person may intentionally and substantially interfere with the lawful freedom of expression of others,” the email said. The spokesperson did not say whether the actions of the students who shouted down Raskin violated the code of conduct, and if similar activities would be tolerated at graduation. 

When reached for comment, several prominent universities directed Jewish Insider to their schools’ codes of conduct. All of them agreed that disruptive protests are not permitted at graduation, although they declined to share specifics about their plans for any potential disruptions, citing security concerns.

“We are well aware there is a possibility of disruption,” said Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor for executive communications at the University of California, Berkeley. “There is a distinct line and difference between nonviolent protest that does not interfere with the rights of others — including the right to participate in and/or attend a graduation ceremony — and impermissible actions that violate the rights of others.” 

The University of Virginia plans to have “designated areas outside the ticketed event space for protest activity to occur during official ceremonies,” a university spokesperson said. Official events and ceremonies are ticketed. “Protest activity must not block access to the event or use amplified sound.”

Graduation ceremonies are usually the biggest events that universities organize each year, and the culmination of students’ experiences on campus. Dignitaries — politicians, trustees, donors, prominent alumni — are in attendance, putting the schools under more intense scrutiny. That’s a big difference from student-run events where security protocols might be unclear, or where administrators may choose not to enforce campus rules.

“They’re not really prepared for addressing heckler’s vetoes and event disruptions,” said FIRE’s Greenberg. “For commencement, it’s a very well-planned large event and universities take great pains to ensure it goes smoothly. So I think because of the preparation, because due to the large police presence there and just the sheer number of people, any disruption to the event, whether it’s the speaker or to the audience, tends to be addressed pretty quickly.” 

Chris Booker, director of media and public relations at The Ohio State University, said the large number of attendees at graduations means “there is always a potential for a disruption. It has always been a part of the university’s standard comprehensive preparedness plan to employ heightened safety, security, and crowd and audience management measures for commencement.” 

Citing new campus policies announced in January to combat antisemitism, a spokesperson for American University asserted that indoor protests are not allowed on campus. “This includes commencement,” said Matthew Bennett, vice president and chief communications officer. “Violations of the directives or other university policies are subject to disciplinary action.”

Stacy Wagner, a University of Colorado Boulder spokesperson, said that “interference, obstruction, or disruption of CU Boulder activity” are violations of the student code of conduct. “Any student found responsible for violating the Student Code of Conduct will be subject to appropriate sanctions.” 

Neither Bennett, Wagner or the other university administrators contacted by JI shared how violations would be handled, and what “disciplinary action” might entail. 

Universities “sometimes are a little squeamish,” Rotenberg pointed out, “about being completely candid about what are the consequences for violating these rules.”

Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, wasn’t sure what to expect when, a week ago, he met with a diverse group of students at Harvard Law School to defend his long-held belief that progressive values are compatible with, if not contingent upon, maintaining support for Israel.

The topic of the event was sure to be met with at least some resistance, particularly on a campus like that of Harvard University, where instances of anti-Israel activism have drawn national scrutiny in recent months.

But de Blasio said he was largely encouraged by the response to his talk, billed as “The Progressive Case for Israel” and held in a classroom at Harvard’s Wasserstein Hall on Tuesday, Feb. 28. “We had a real dialogue, and folks were struck by that,” de Blasio told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. “There was actually a sustained discussion.”

Even as the tenor of the discussion “was at times heated” and “at times a little tense,” he acknowledged, “it was still civil in the scheme of things.”

“I heard views I would call left-wing, views I would call right-wing, views I would call pro-Israel and views I would call pro-Palestine,” de Blasio recounted. “I heard a range in the course of an hour, and no one left the room, no one walked out. People stuck with it. I actually saw some hope in that.”

De Blasio, who recently concluded a semester-long fellowship at Harvard, was asked to speak at the university by the Alliance for Israel at Harvard and the Harvard Jewish Law Students Association, which co-hosted the event.

“Bill de Blasio served for two terms as mayor of New York City, which has the highest Jewish population of any city across the globe,” Marc Heinrich and Ari Spitzer, co-presidents of the Harvard Jewish Law Students Association, wrote in a joint email to JI. “We were honored to co-host Mayor de Blasio and hear him speak to the greater Harvard Law School community about how New York’s Jewish community impacted his core values as a public servant.”

As a veteran Democrat who built strong relationships with Orthodox Jewish leaders in Brooklyn while in office, de Blasio, 61, said he was eager to reflect on such experiences at the Harvard event. “I talked about meeting Holocaust survivors, and, very powerfully, one woman who showed me and my family the tattoo on her arm from Auschwitz,” he said, recalling “a shock of recognition that the violence associated with antisemitism was so real and so recent and, horribly, continuing all over the world.”

“That’s one of the reasons that, to me, we cannot underestimate for a moment the challenges Jewish people face in this world, and why the State of Israel is absolutely needed as a refuge,” de Blasio insisted. “That does not negate other legitimate issues that need to be addressed, and it certainly doesn’t negate the valid concerns of Palestinians. But my central thesis is, progressives are supposed to stand up for oppressed peoples.”

The invitation to speak at Harvard, de Blasio elaborated, was also an opportunity to “dispel” what he described as “a horrible stereotype that suggests that some vast number of progressives are not supportive of the State of Israel.”

“I think that’s just absolutely inaccurate and based on no evidence, and I think it’s important to bear witness,” he added. “There’s a lot of us who support the State of Israel. Many of us don’t agree with the Netanyahu government, but we support the State of Israel.”

Speaking with JI, de Blasio emphasized that he is troubled by the direction of Israel’s right-wing governing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose effort to advance a controversial judicial overhaul has drawn mass protests across the Jewish state. “I think the actions of the Netanyahu government are extremely worrisome,” he said. “I am worried about the future of democracy in Israel.”

He clarified, however, that such concerns, which have recently been echoed by a growing number of Democratic leaders, are consistent with a pro-Israel outlook. “You can still love Israel and support the State of Israel but acknowledge it has a democracy problem,” he said, “just like I love America and acknowledge my own country has a democracy problem.”

“The notion that sometimes people are accused of antisemitism if they disagree with the current Israeli government is obviously outlandish and needs to be called out,” de Blasio added. “That came up in the dialogue, and I said, ‘I know so many leaders who are deeply respectful of the Jewish experience and happen to disagree with the Israeli government, and there’s no contradiction.’ I think that has to be understood better.”

Last summer, de Blasio raised some eyebrows when he dropped his support for AIPAC during a brief run for an open congressional seat in Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. His objection to the pro-Israel lobbying group, which he had long defended, was that its political arm had recently targeted a fellow progressive Democrat, Nina Turner, in a Cleveland-area House primary. 

During that election, Jewish voters in Cleveland had expressed reservations over Turner’s approach to Israel, which drew attack ads from pro-Israel groups including a super PAC affiliated with AIPAC.

In an interview with JI last June, de Blasio defended his decision to denounce AIPAC, noting that he did not agree with all of Turner’s Middle East policy positions but remained loyal to her as a friend. The New York Democrat, who visited Israel during his second year as mayor, maintained that he “can simultaneously be a very proud progressive and a very proud supporter of Israel,” adding, “I don’t see any contradiction.”

The recent event at Harvard was, in many ways, a continuation of that argument, as he reiterated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and underscored his opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, among other things.

His remarks came days before Harvard’s Arab Conference, where an outspoken supporter of BDS who has been accused of antisemitism, the former Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour, delivered a keynote address in which she exhorted students to protest “apartheid” Israel. The consulting giant McKinsey & Company, which sponsored the event, announced on Monday that it had “stepped away” from the conference after learning that one speaker, whom it did not identify by name, “had a history of antisemitic comments.”

The weekend speech from Sarsour followed other examples in which debates over Israel have stirred controversy at Harvard. Last year, the editorial board of its student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, endorsed the BDS movement, drawing a sharp rebuke from the student president of Harvard Hillel, among others.  (The paper’s news team covered the Blasio event last week.) In 2016, third-year law student Husam El-Qoulaq, invoked an antisemitism trope during a question-and-answer period at an event with former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

In January, meanwhile, the Harvard Kennedy School said it would grant a fellowship to the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, after the school’s dean had reportedly vetoed its initial offer amid concerns over Roth’s apparent hostility to Israel.

“I think, in academia, it’s important to respect and hear a diversity of voices,” de Blasio said of the Roth dustup. “That’s my only comment on that.”

As a visiting fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health this past semester, de Blasio said he had been invited to speak with Jewish and Muslim groups but never had the chance to engage with students together, as he did last week.

“It’s great to speak to people of different viewpoints separately, but it’s especially powerful to bring everyone in the room and be like, ‘let’s hash it out,’” he told JI. “I don’t mean that’s like, you know, kumbaya. I don’t mean it’s going to be easy. But if we’re not devoted to that kind of open dialogue and having the tough conversations, then we are accepting of an absolutely unacceptable status quo.”

During the question-and-answer session of the discussion, de Blasio, who is now a visiting fellow at New York University and American University in Washington, D.C., said he heard from both Palestinian and Muslim students who voiced what he characterized as “very real concerns” about the content of his argument.

“What I tried to do was listen and give them the chance to get their whole statement or question out, even if I disagreed with some elements of it, and answer as someone who respects the Muslim community,” he explained. “Beginning with the atmosphere of, I believe, respect and willingness to listen, doesn’t mean watering down my views. But I do think encouraging dialogue, being willing to take tough questions, is valuable unto itself.”

One student attendee, Ben, a second-year law student at Harvard who declined to share his last name, affirmed the former mayor’s assessment in an email shared with JI. “I couldn’t get over the diverse perspectives that we got to hear from: Israelis, Jewish progressives, right-wing evangelicals, pro-Palestine activists,” he said in a message sent to the Harvard Jewish Law Students Association after the event. “It was intense, exciting and thought-provoking.”

De Blasio, for his part, said he considers it a minor if ultimately meaningful achievement that the conversation did not devolve into a shouting match or result in a walk-out.

“This is a microcosm of what we have to do for our country and for the Middle Eastern region in general,” he suggested. “It was a very, very small, localized first step at Harvard, but it was better than never being in the room together.”