American Ivy League Will Now Hold Race-Based Graduations
The oldest and one of the most prestigious American Ivy League universities is taking its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies to the next level after announcing that the 2024 graduation ceremonies will be separated based on race, religion, sexuality and socio-economic class.
Harvard’s announcement revealed that each group will have its own commencement ceremonies, and students can register for an all-Black ceremony, an Arab ceremony, a first-generation-low-income ceremony, a lavender ceremony (LGBT), a disability ceremony, a global indigenous celebration, a Jewish ceremony, an Asian-American/islander ceremony or a “Latinx” ceremony.
The DEI policies and “affinity group” graduation commencements came under fire in 2023 after Manhattan Institute journalist Chris Rufo flamed the university on his X profile, noting that Whites and Jews were the only groups without their own ceremonies. The university swiftly added a commencement ceremony for its Jewish students, deleted the announcement, and replaced it with a new one that included a “Jewish Celebration,” but ignored his statement about White students.
This is not the first time that Harvard’s DEI office has come under fire. Chief DEI officer Sherri Ann Charleston was investigated and let go for plagiarism in her academic works, following the pattern of her successor, Claudine Gay, who was terminated for similar reasons.
“DEI ideology is so deeply ingrained in the university’s culture that Harvard requires applicants for professorship positions to submit descriptions of their orientation toward diversity, equity, and inclusion practices,” Randall L. Kennedy, a Harvard professor, wrote in an op-ed that appeared in the Harvard Crimson.
Harvard student Gabriel Kelvin also broke his silence in a statement to the National Review, saying, “If I were an American going to school overseas, at a school that did not speak my native language and there were a few other American students, I would probably like to get together and celebrate my graduation with my fellow American students.”
Kelvin highlighted his confusion with the circumstances, explaining, “When it gets to identity-based groups, that’s where I get a little confused — especially when you’re segregating groups along racial lines. If it’s led and initiated by what’s perceived as the majority, it’s discriminatory, whereas if it’s organized and initiated by the minority group, it’s considered ‘affirmative’ and ‘affinity-based’ and all those nice buzzwords.”
The counterintuitive way that Harvard has decided to express “diversity, equity and inclusion” — through separation and segmentation — has shocked many onlookers and reassured others of the dystopian circumstances that have become everyday life in the United States. The spectacle gives a glimpse of the realities of multicultural fantasies sold by leftists whose goal in bringing people of all races and creeds under one roof is apparently to segregate and divide.
