Flag in Graduation ceremony - what would you think?

Do you reckon that the same would be allowed this year? With Columbia being the latest to bend the knee to Trump, and ICE waiting in the wings for any international students.

YANBU. Massively inappropriate, not the time it place and detracts from the other graduates.

The uni staff should have told her to take it off.

Generally I don’t think it’s an appropriate occasion for activism but I also think how it’s done matters.

At DS’s graduation a few weeks ago one student had a small flag (Palestinian) that they only got out when they were presented with their degree.

It didn’t impact any other students/photo opportunities for parents and I didn’t object to it. It was clearly a personal gesture that imho was not intrusive to the occasion as a whole.

Lots of people aren’t aware even now - maybe they found out while in the middle of their studies or towards the end? What’s difficult to grasp about people learning new information - while at uni of all places!

@ASongOfRiceAndPeas
Lots of universities have investments tied to companies in Israel

Are students able to find out about these investments? If so, and they are opposed to them, then why are they going to universities which invest in Israeli companies?

Good for them. Lots of universities have investments tied to companies in Israel. Students have always been huge advocates of protest so I don’t see why you’re bothered. It’s not your graduation, it’s theirs and they’ve paid tens of thousands in fees which they might not want going towards atrocities being committed.

The flag denotes many things - 'deliberate' starvation, is yet another inaccuracy, facilitated by that flag.

You wouldn't flag wave at a wedding or a civil union, a baptism or christening, or a funeral. There are some events that as a culture we hold close and for a lot of people a graduation fits in with these.

I would be so fucked off if this was done or allowed at my child’s graduation. Virtual signalling at its finest. A graduation is NOT the place for this. Those poor other graduates - having one of the most important days of their lives overshadowed by a school friend with a flag! Time and a place for everything - this was not it.

When my son graduated last year the instructions were very clear that political symbols were not allowed, although they did allow national costume.

While students are generally left leaning, their parents aren't always! However, I don't think being against the deliberate starvation of people should be considered left wing but there's a time and place for demonstrations and I don't think a graduation is it. It's attention seeking.

They had one "protesting" at son's graduation at Loughborough. Not the time or place. Does not align anyone with the cause.

About time.

Our legal team recently covered this in a training session on the new HE freedom of speech legislation. Protests aimed at / deliberately staged in front of Jewish students or staff could be construed as harassment, in their view.

Why would it matter if the chancellor is Jewish? Showing support for Palestine is not antisemitic.

We had exactly the same last year dts graduations (two different universities) Some students walking on stage unfurling flags and playing to the gallery. And in some cases a refusal to shake the chancellor’s hand for some reason that I didn’t understand.

I suppose there’s a time and a place, but that wasn’t it.

DD's graduation at LSE a few weeks ago had a student unfurling a pro Palestinian flag when going up to shake hands wit the Vice Chancellor. I expect that it was quite common in graduations this year.

I am sure for most people it would be a brief fleeting moment and their minds would move on.

Possibly not for the Vice Chancellor if he or she happened to be Jewish.

Hell yeah good on them genocide is a much bigger issue than someone's graduation photo being ruined

Precisely how do you think these demonstrations will make any difference at all to anything that is happening in Gaza? I'll wait....

And where are or were all the flag waving demonstrations about the Yazidis, about Sudan, the Rohingya, the Uighur....?

Doing it like that, in the student's own individual moment, is not the same as what the OP describes, which impinged on the celebrations of other graduates (who might hold different opinions).

Hell yeah good on them genocide is a much bigger issue than someone's graduation photo being ruined 🙄

How do you know that?

Good for them.

Same. I am sure for most people it would be a brief fleeting moment and their minds would move on.

There were lots of similar posts on TikTok, such a shame that they didn’t do their bit away from the others.

🎯

They are boring, unless you are a immigrant faced with an EDL protest from the stage, complete with the flag of that ethno-nationalist movement; a Taiwanese student marginalised from Chinese university life by PRC nationalists who now unfurl their flag from the podium; a Catholic or Protestant Irishman hoping to put that pain behind you while the community that murdered your relatives parades their colours on your graduation day; a Jewish student already made a pariah for your Zionist attachment, or just for your ethnicity, watching a dominance display from the Palestine crowd looking for some easy applause; a Gazan whose home and family has been torn apart and who must now sit supplicant while an Israeli nationalist waves the flag of those who brought the destruction; etc etc etc etc.

It's all a nice diversion if you don't take these things seriously. But if you do, you need to actually take them seriously. If you are happy with all the above, then go ahead (it's an admirable position, in its way).

But, realistically, it's not going to turn out that way. University administrators won't stand for Tibetan or Taiwanese angering their most lucrative client. The won't stand for ethno-nationalism of the unfashionable kind. It will be some causes perennially allowed the megaphone, and some students perennially the outcasts. That's why I think no politics/no flags is the better, neutral, rule.

Here's my AIBU. I think it was highly inappropriate to steal the moment from all of your classmates. It is everyone's moment of glory and shouldn't be about just one person and their beliefs. I don't think that the University staff should have let her in with it.

Steal the moment! Let’s face it, graduations are boring affairs and are mainly aimed at the attending families. Did your child think their moment of glory was stolen? I don’t know how long this person was draped in the flag but graduations last a very long time, I’m sure there was a lot of moments to go around.

Would it happen in the US, no they would probably be in prison, which is where we are heading if we don’t stop this reactionary nonsense. Universities are precisely the places to protest and given the various crackdowns on protests, university is probably one of the last safe spaces.