After a season of Gaza protests, America’s university graduates are polarised but resilient

The graduation speech is a dismal genre, typically a sermon about showing grit and finding your own path, leavened by dad jokes. America’s university graduating classes of 2024 are unlikely to mind. The great majority of them started college four years ago, amid peak covid. This spring, protests over the war in Gaza disrupted many campuses and led to nearly 3,000 arrests nationwide. At the hotspot of Columbia University in New York, classes went online again, triggering covid flashbacks. University leaders and police prepared this month for tense scenes at graduation ceremonies.

Instead, something like normality has broken out. Despite the cancellation of the university-wide commencement, the scene was joyous at the smaller ceremony for Columbia’s main undergraduate college. Many students carried yellow inflated lions, the university mascot. Kathy Fang, the valedictorian, was among a couple of dozen students who wore keffiyehs, in solidarity with Palestinians, and when she walked across the stage to receive her diploma, she carried a sign saying “DIVEST.” But her peaceful protest—like many others at graduations elsewhere—was enveloped by the university’s cap-and-gown rituals. For once the clichés seemed apt. By showing grit over several years, the class of 2024 enjoyed the graduations many craved.

“The norm for this class is adapt, adapt, adapt,” says Katherine Rowe, the president of William & Mary, a public liberal-arts university in Virginia. Dr Rowe is proud of her students. She says they managed to properly follow covid protocols four years ago, and so her college never experienced a covid outbreak. “They had to be flexible every day,” she says. “They were ready to make an adjustment in any week, so that they could stay together.”

Many comparisons have been made between the current cohort and the protesting baby-boomers of the 1960s and 1970s, but they differ in significant ways. For one, many more people are enrolled in college nowadays. Nearly 16m students enrolled in an undergraduate programme in 2020 compared with about 9m in 1976. This class is also more racially diverse. Nearly half of students who started college in 2020 were non-white compared with less than a fifth in 1976. Gender dynamics have changed too. Females were the majority of entering college students in 2020 (58%) compared with just under half in 1976.

The class of 2024 is probably more politically polarised than boomers were at the same age. Almost half of college juniors say they would rather not room with someone who supported a different presidential candidate in the last election, and about two-thirds said they could not see themselves marrying someone who voted differently, a poll by NBC News/GenerationLab found. Those attitudes mirror polarisation among older Americans.

Those graduating are also pessimistic. They are entering a strong job market, yet only 9% see America as “generally headed in the right direction,” according to this spring’s annual Harvard Youth Poll. Nearly two-thirds of the poll’s 18- to 29-year-old respondents named inflation as the most important issue facing the country. Health care came next at 59%. Just over half listed “protecting democracy” as a concern, while 34% named Israel-Palestine. Young women are more liberal than young men, reflecting a global trend. Among likely voters, young men favoured Joe Biden over Donald Trump by six points; among young women, Biden’s lead was 33 points.

Despite the turmoil on dozens of campuses over Gaza, the majority of universities faced only peaceful protests this spring, if they experienced protests at all. Timid university leaders cancelled provocative speakers nonetheless. Xavier University of Louisiana rescinded its offer to their scheduled graduation speaker, America’s ambassador to the United Nations, after students objected to her vote against the ceasefire in Gaza. Duke University commendably went forward with an address by Jerry Seinfeld, who has expressed strong pro-Israel views since October 7th. The result was a largely civil display of dissent—some students walked out as he began to speak—but the comedian delivered his talk, with better-than-average jokes.

On a recent afternoon at the University of Maryland, the campus offers a sharp contrast to this spring’s images of tent encampments and arrests. Students slurp iced coffees and bubble tea in the packed food court. Eager young volunteers man a table outside the union with flyers about the health-care centre and bowls filled to the brim with colourful free condoms.

There are protesters. A group of about 20 pro-Palestine activists have collected on a hill outside the student union with large banners. Administrators at the University of Maryland increased security this month for Israel Fest, an annual university event hosted by the Jewish Student Union. Protesters chanted outside, but no major incidents were reported.

“I respect the protests,” says Luke Needham, a graduating senior studying atmospheric and oceanic science. “Being able to see people voice their opinion, and be passionate about the things they’re passionate about, I think that’s a great thing.” However, Mr Needham has already missed one graduation—his high-school commencement in 2020—and he does not want to think about the university potentially cancelling his college graduation scheduled for May 20th. “I’m walking across that stage no matter what,” he says with a large smile across his face.■