On an overcast Sunday afternoon, 4,000 members of the class of 2024 gathered as family and friends filled the Fenway Park stands to celebrate Northeastern’s spring undergraduate commencement. Graduates wore decorated caps and many waved various countries’ flags, including a notable number of Palestinian flags, which student activists distributed to graduates outside of Fenway Park.
While Columbia University in New York and UCLA in California have garnered the most recent national headlines, several schools in the Boston area are also embroiled in these standoffs. Encampments have popped up in outdoor areas on both sides of the Charles River.
More than half of 98 protesters arrested at Northeastern University last weekend are not affiliated with the large urban school in Boston, university officials said Thursday.
A group of around 11 Northeastern students, many of whom were arrested Saturday morning at the Gaza solidarity encampment on Centennial Common, held a press conference Monday morning outside of Boston Municipal Court in Roxbury. The conference was held following the 9 a.m. arraignment of Kyler Shinkle-Stolar, who identified himself as a fifth-year biology major.
In a statement emailed to The News April 30, Northeastern’s Jewish Affinity Group for Faculty and Staff, or JAG, said it is “grateful to the Northeastern University leadership and Police Department for bringing last week’s protest encampment to a swift resolution.” The pro-Palestine solidarity encampment started at roughly 8 a.m. April 25 and lasted through.