Columbia University has canceled the commencement ceremony for students on May 15
I worked my entire life to get into Columbia: Graduating senior
Student Katie and her father Jason explain their disappointment after Columbia University cancelled the university-wide graduation ceremony because of anti-Israel protests on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’
A senior at Columbia University who missed out on her high school graduation due to COVID will also not get to walk at her college graduation due to anti-Israel protests.
"It's so disappointing," Katie, a senior at Columbia University, said Monday in an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters.
"To be honest with you, even weeks ago when I saw the horrific terrorism unfolding on our campus, I didn't even want to go to my graduation anymore," she explained. "I worked my entire life to get into Columbia. I got straight A's my entire college career. And now I don't even want to walk in my graduation because I know that my administration has proven time and time again, for the last seven months really, not only the last three or four weeks, that it refuses to protect Jewish students and students who are just regular Americans who want to go to class."
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A senior at Columbia University who missed out on her high school graduation due to COVID is also missing out on her college graduation due to anti-Israel protests. (Fox News)
Katie confirmed to Watters that she also missed out on her high school graduation.
Columbia University announced it would cancel its commencement ceremony for students this year amid massive anti-Israel student protests on campus. Katie said that the atmosphere on campus has been terrible following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel.
"It's been just horrendous for the last 7 months," she said. "On Oct. 12, five days after the massacre of innocent Israeli and American citizens in Israel, hundreds of students on my campus were protesting in support of Hamas before Israel ever engaged in a counteroffensive to defend the country."
"It was never about Palestinian civilians. It was never about freeing Palestine, as they say," she added. "It's about finding some kind of community for people who, unfortunately, clearly don't have one and spreading terrorism across the country that's purely antisemitic, anti-Israel and anti-American."
Students in pro-Palestinian keffiyehs. (REUTERS/David Dee Delgado)
"At every pro-Israeli protest, we have American and Israeli flags and these terror supporters rip them from our hands, step on them and set them on fire," Katie said.
Katie recounted that she has witnessed a variety of hateful symbols on campus, including Hamas, ISIS and Nazi ones.
Katie's father, Jason, said the news of Columbia's cancelation of its commencement ceremony was "heartbreaking."
Columbia University did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Jeffrey Clark is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. He has previously served as a speechwriter for a cabinet secretary and as a Fulbright teacher in South Korea. Jeffrey graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a degree in English and History.
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