Columbia University is set to host six separate graduation ceremonies based on sex, race, and income in the name of “multiculturalism.”
The graduations will “complement” the existing school-wide ceremonies. The school’s web page claims that the segregated events will “provide a more intimate setting for students and guests to gather, incorporate meaningful cultural traditions and celebrate the specific contributions and achievements of their communities.”
The ceremonies provided include a “Native Graduation” for Native-American students, a “Lavender Graduation” for students who identify as part of the LGBTQ community, an “Asian Graduation,” a “FLI Graduation” for “first-generation and/or low-income community” members, a “Latinx Graduation,” and a “Black Graduation.”
According to a report by the National Association of Scholars, more than 75 schools across the nation offer optional segregated graduation ceremonies to students. The most notable and elite institutions include Harvard, the University of California-San Diego, the University of California-Irvine, Arizona State University, Stanford, the University of California-Berkeley, UCLA, and Yale.
In many cases, these ceremonies are co-hosted by black student affinity groups, specific academic departments, or multicultural centers.
The phenomena began in 2017 and within two years had co-opted Harvard University into hosting an “UndocuGraduation” for students who were in the country illegally. A speaker at the “UndocuGraduation” was a Harvard history professor who was arrested while protesting President Donald Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2017.
The National Association of Scholars’ Dion Pierre wrote back in 2017 that he believed segregated graduation ceremonies would prove to intensify existing racial tensions.
“Ultimately, university officials go wrong when they treat students as black, Latino, or Asian, i.e., as different. By doing so, they reinforce the idea of interminable inequality and conflict between the races,” Pierre said. “If our universities hope to ease racial tensions, they should encourage students and parents to meet one another as citizens united by a common sense of purpose, not as mutually opposed ethnic groups.”
Ceremonies and other racially segregated “affinity groups” have been given the green light from the Biden administration. In his first few days in office, Biden’s Department of Education reversed course on a decision that found racially segregated groups to be a form of segregation.
The Daily Wire reported:
In the final days of the Trump administration, the Department of Education determined that racial “affinity groups” were discriminatory because they treated students and staff differently based on their race. The New York Post discovered that the Biden Education Department suspended this decision.
Be it separate graduation ceremonies or “affinity groups,” both are used to separate students and staff by race in hopes of giving black, Indigenous, and people of color a “safe space” to discuss their experiences with racism while providing a separate space for white people to learn about their “white privilege.”
It has also become a growing trend on college campuses to allegedly help white students understand their role in racism and systemic oppression.