Harvard affinity group graduations held off campus amid ‘capitulation' to Trump

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29-05-2025

As graduating Harvard University students celebrated completing their degrees this week, some remained irked at the school for its decision a month ago to withdraw support for special ceremonies celebrating members of various identity groups.
Under pressure from the Trump administration, Harvard said it would no longer fund, staff or provide space for affinity group graduation ceremonies, such as events honoring graduating students who are Black, veterans, Muslim or members of other groups.
The school said at the same time that it would rename its Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging to the Office of Community and Campus Life.
Some students saw the two moves as the school capitulating to the Trump administration, even as it battled the government tooth and nail on other matters.
At the time, Harvard senior Victor Flores told MassLive he was more excited to celebrate his upcoming graduation at a ceremony for other Latin American students than to attend the main graduation, which was held Thursday.
'There's nothing like celebrating in community, especially with peers of similar backgrounds and similar experiences,' Flores said.
Read more: 'Willing to capitulate': Cracks emerge in Harvard's resistance to Trump over DEI
Without Harvard's support, space or funding for identity group graduation ceremonies, he and other students took the challenge of planning the events on themselves.
Eight affinity groups held graduation ceremonies over the past week, and at almost every one, speakers criticized the university for backing away from the events, according to the Harvard Crimson, the school's student newspaper.
At the Harvard Black Graduation, attended by more than 500 people at an off-campus hotel in Cambridge, New York Times reporter Nikole S. Hannah-Jones told graduates they 'deserved better than the capitulation of those in power here that would force you, with very little notice, to hold this graduation off campus and with no university support,' according to the Crimson.
Other unofficial affinity group ceremonies honored Latino, first-generation, low-income, LGBTQ+, Muslim, veteran, disabled, and Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi American graduates, the student paper reported.
Ahead of Harvard's main commencement ceremonies on Thursday, Gabriel Rodriguez said his brother, a first-generation college student in a Mexican-American family, was among those students whose affinity group celebrations lost university support.
'He and his friends had to rally, and the rest of the Latino students had to rally, to get a Latino graduation set up,' Rodriguez said. 'They were able to raise $15,000, but the fact that it had to happen on their own and they didn't have the university's support really makes a difference.'
Rodriguez said the last few months have been stressful — for his brother on a campus under pressure from the federal government, and for the family watching it from afar.
Harvard has spent weeks as the focal point of President Donald Trump's assault on higher education as his administration applied increasing pressure to enact massive change to Harvard's admissions, hiring, management and curriculum.
Read more: Here's everything Trump has stripped from Harvard so far — and what is threatened
'We were worried, because whenever there's such a spotlight on a university, you just never know what's going to happen,' Rodriguez said. 'And so there were concerns that we just want to make sure that he was safe and that he was in a good place.'
At an affinity group ceremony for first-generation and low-income students this week, Anthony Jack, author of 'The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students,' said the event had been 'marred by broken promises' by Harvard, according to the Crimson.
'They tried to take our commencements away,' Jack said. 'But nothing — no executive order, no coerced concession — can take away all that went into making this day possible.'
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Read the original article on MassLive.