As tensions boil at universities across the country amid scattered police confrontations with pro-Palestinian protesters, Southern California colleges are grappling with campus safety issues as graduation ceremonies near in the coming weeks.

Locally, major disruptions have occurred at four campuses — USC, UCLA, UC Irvine and Pomona College — over student-led demands for a permanent ceasefire in the war on Gaza and an end to financial support for Israel. And although security concerns there have been the most intense, other Southern California colleges are now taking measures to ensure their commencement activities — and the weeks leading up to them — are free of similar clashes.

Turmoil has been highest at USC, which found itself in a national spotlight when it canceled the commencement speech by Muslim valedictorian Asna Tabassum of Chino Hills over security concerns triggered by her anti-Israel social media views. A backlash over that decision from students and outside groups prompted the university to cancel all graduation speakers and honorees at its main commencement ceremony.

Then, days later as tensions flared, the LAPD arrested nearly 100 pro-Palestinian protesters at USC. University officials responded by canceling its “main stage” commencement scheduled May 10 over “new safety measures.” The ceremony was expected to draw 65,000 people to Alumni Park.

The school, however, still will host “dozens” of smaller, secure commencement events and receptions from May 8 to 11 where graduates can walk across the stage to receive their diplomas. The secured events will be ticketed, with a “clear bag” policy.

‘Massive overreaction’

Some have condemned USC for what they believe was an escalating series of missteps that provoked much of the hostility on campus.

Mike Ananny, a tenured USC professor who was among 50 faculty members protesting on campus Friday, April 26, blamed the university for “a massive overreaction” to the threats that surfaced over Tabassum’s speech. USC, he said, could have resorted to other options over stripping the valedictorian of her voice.

“I find ‘safety concerns’ hard to believe because the university has hosted many other contentious speakers and has invested security resources, so they chose not to do that,” said Ananny, 48. “I think (students’) voice is very much needed at this time. The big error and failure was inviting the LAPD in riot gear with nonlethal weapons, intimidating students and faculty and, really, the LAPD turned the campus into a zone of military activity.”

Must ‘protect our community’

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