What To Do If You're Concerned about Anti-Zionist Commencement Disruptions
Graduating seniors work hard to reach this milestone: commencement season. They deserve to celebrate and be recognized for their accomplishments. Their colleges and universities owe it to them to prepare for these events and ensure that anti-Israel agitators do not ruin the moment for everyone. If you are concerned about commencement being disrupted, here’s what to do.
What to do now, in advance of commencement:
- Contact your college or university now with your concerns and share the information from this letter with key steps they should take to ensure that commencement goes as planned.
- Use social media to call on your college or university to be proactive in developing and disseminating a clear plan to keep audience members safe during graduation (consider using the hashtag #NotOnMyCampus).
- Work with other students and parents to urge your school to announce its plans and ask what will happen to those who attempt to disrupt the event in violation of school policies.
- Contact Jewish communal organizations on campus – Hillel, Chabad, Jewish Greek life organizations – to see if students and families can celebrate together and organize groups to attend commencement together in community.
If there are disruptions at your commencement or other end of term celebratory events:
- Ensure you and your family are safe; seek support from law enforcement as needed.
- Report antisemitic incidents and rhetoric to ADL at adl.org/report-incident.
- If you can, take pictures and videos of the disruptive incidents; please send them to campus@adl.org.
- Contact the university to express your deep disappointment and anger.
- Consider writing an OpEd to share more about the impact that the disruption had on the campus community and on Jewish students.
- Despite the disruption, celebrate your accomplishments with friends and family, and consider sharing your pride on social media (e.g., #ProudJewishCollegeGraduate).