We have made the decision to forgo the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15 in favour of concentrating attention on our class days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honoured individually alongside their peers, based on feedback from our students, officials at the Ivy League school in upper Manhattan said in a statement.

Similar protests at dozens of US institutions have been sparked by the Columbia University demonstrations, which garnered international attention. Students have asked that their schools divest from businesses that have ties to Israel and have called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Citing a critical need for campus safety, some institutions, including Columbia, dispatched riot police armed with batons and flash-bang grenades to arrest and scatter hundreds of protestors. Civil rights organisations have denounced these strategies as needlessly violent violations of the right to free speech.

The school said that it had reached the decision after talking with kids, stating that the last several weeks have been "incredibly difficult" for the community.

The statement stated, "Our children emphasised that these school-based, smaller-scale events are most meaningful to them and their families. They can't wait to walk across the platform and receive cheers from their family and the distinguished guest speakers from their school.

The University of California cancels ceremonies

According to administrators, the majority of the ceremonies that were supposed to take place on the main campus's south lawn—where encampments were removed last week—will instead take place at Columbia's sports facility, which is located about five miles north.

Columbia had cancelled its in-person classes previously. 

Prior to this, the University of Southern California (USC) decided not to have its main commencement ceremony, but other commencement events were still held. Following an arrest threat and being besieged by police, students at USC left their camp early on Sunday.

Chancellor Gene Block announced on Sunday the creation of a new Office of Campus Safety at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the scene of a fight between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters last week that resulted in the detention of over 200 people by the police.