Graduation used to be for coming together as a class one last time to celebrate academic accomplishments, but today there’s a growing trend for segregated celebrations highlighting race and ethnicity.
A new report by the National Association of Scholars has identified more than 75 schools offering segregated graduations. These supplemental commencement ceremonies are offered in addition to the universities’ regular graduation ceremonies and are not mandatory.
The National Association of Scholars looked at 173 schools and found that 76 of them, or 44%, offer these ceremonies. These range from small private schools to big public universities. Some notable ones include Harvard, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, Arizona State University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Yale.
In many cases, these ceremonies are co-hosted by black student groups, campus resource centers, or specific academic departments.
Some colleges and universities are also offering separate ceremonies for Latino or LGBT student populations. This year, Harvard held its first “UndocuGraduation” for students in the country illegally. One speaker at the “UndocuGraduation” was a Harvard history professor who was arrested while protesting President Trump’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals back in 2017.
Other forms of segregation take place on campus in separate dorms and freshmen orientations.
In its report, the National Association of Scholars called the separate commencements an example of “neo-segregation” on campus. The report acutely points out that “neo-segregation is the breeding ground of racial conflict in American society.”
“Neo-segregation inculcates in young people the readiness to cling to a victim identity at the expense of becoming a positive member of the larger community,” the report states. “No doubt a large portion of the racial grievance politics we see in society at large these days is the carefully nurtured product of campus neo-segregation.”
While there is certainly a growing trend to host these separate ceremonies, they have been around for some time. Syracuse University hosted its first black graduation ceremony in 2004, the University of Southern California initiated its in 1999, and Stanford established its black graduation ceremony more than 40 years ago.
Alexander James is a contributor to Red Alert Politics and a freelance journalist.
