Protests Unfold In and Around Nickerson Field During BU’s Commencement (2024)

While Boston University’s 151st All-University Commencement was being held Sunday on Nickerson Field, dozens of students and supporters marched outside both before and after the ceremony, protesting for reasons close to home and around the world—better conditions for BU graduate students and residence life workers and condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

During the boisterous ceremony held under gray skies, as soon as David Grann (GRS’94), bestselling author and 151st Commencement speaker, concluded his address, a group of roughly 100 graduates stood up, briefly shouted, “Free, free Palestine,” and exited Nickerson Field in a demonstration coordinated by BU Students for Justice in Palestine (BUSJP). The walkout plans were disseminated on BUSJP’s Instagram, intended to “reject the university’s silence and complicity in the face of the ongoing violent Israeli occupation of Palestine,” according to text accompanying the post.

Protesting graduates proceeded up Harry Agganis Way to join the striking graduate workers and ResLife protest.

“We’re ready to go through the summer, we’re ready to go into the fall, and we know that we can outlast the [BU administration] because they fight from greed and we fight from necessity,” said Meiya Sparks Lin (GRS’29’29), a PhD candidate and a BU Graduate Workers Union (BUGWU) bargaining team member.

The protests began in the morning. Sparks Lin and other BUGWU members and the Residence Life union came together in front of Harry Agganis Way as a stream of graduates and their families made their way toward Nickerson Field. From 11 am to 3 pm, union members and supporters, including representatives of the Massachusetts Union for Human Service Workers and Educators (SEIU Local 509), marched in a loose circle, raising signs reading “BU Works Because We Do” and “Same Struggle, Same Fight, Workers of the World Unite.” They made makeshift drums out of buckets and used megaphones that at times drowned out announcements directing graduates and their families to file into Nickerson. One protestor marched hand in hand with his toddler.

Sunday was the culmination of the BUGWU’s efforts this semester. The union, made up of more than 3,000 master’s, professional, and PhD graduate students, began its strike in March after failing to reach an agreement with BU officials over a new contract with, among other issues, increased stipends and better benefits.

The union’s publicly available “Bargaining Tracking Sheet” lists more than 20 separate issues being negotiated, among them Benefits, Compensation, Childcare Subsidies, and Parental Leave.

In a letter sent to the BU community on May 14, BU Provost ad interim Kenneth Lutchen shared an update, saying that the University and BUGWU have met for 25 sessions to date. At their most recent meeting, the University offered PhD students a 12-month stipend, up from an 8-month model, which would give them a minimum annual salary of $42,159. Lutchen described this as “a significant shift in our current model for PhD education.” He also thanked faculty and staff for their flexibility and efforts to ensure that students were impacted as little as possible by the strike.

Leading up to Sunday’s Commencement ceremony, the union had picketed and handed out fliers on May 16 and 17 on Marsh Plaza and at convocation events.

One supporter was Luis Sanchez, whose wife, Karen Taborda, graduated from Questrom School of Business and was involved with the BUGWU gathering signatures.

“The cost of living [COLA] in this city is skyrocketing; it’s nothing new. It’s happening all over the US,” Sanchez said before he walked into Nickerson on Sunday. “But the fact that the cost of living is going up and grad students’ wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, much less the cost of living, is an aberration. Protesting and free speech are the foundations of this country. BU is essentially a corporation in disguise of education. Dig into your endowment and pay your workers.”

Fatimah Bouderdaben (GRS’29,’29) said she was striking this semester specifically to support the grad students receiving a cost of living adjustment and because of the lack of a living wage. “The majority of us are rent-burdened,” she said. “For me, that is not acceptable, especially because of a surplus of over a billion dollars. That’s not just something I am comfortable with when working for an institution that doesn’t care for its workers.”

Bouderdaben is angry about the University administration’s refusal to provide a cost of living adjustment, and said she’s fortunate to be living in a dual-income household, which allows her to afford the rent. “That means there is a failure for students that do not have a spouse with a paycheck they can rely on to accept offers for PhDs,” Bouderdaben said, “and I don’t think that should be a barrier to access academia.”

The BU Residence Life Union was formed in December 2023 to represent 295 resident assistants, graduate resident assistants, and graduate housing assistants. On April 11, they voted in favor of authorizing a four-day strike, scheduled for April 12 to 15, after negotiations with BU officials failed to result in a new contract. According to a publicly available bargaining tracker organized by the ResLife union, also part of SEIU 509, the two sides have yet to reach an agreement on issues that include public health accommodations, additional mental health and addiction training, workload, compensation, and benefits.

Residence Life workers are collectively responsible for 11,000 students living in 150 residences on a round-the-clock, on-call basis. In spite of these responsibilities, their housing situation is at the mercy of their GPAs—a codicil that the union claims was not enforced before the workers formed their union.

“ResLife is the only on-campus job that requires a B-minus to maintain your position,” union member Jacob Leal (STH’26) said. “Unfortunately, we’ve had RAs and GRAs let go in the middle of the year, and they’ve had to find housing because of the grades that they received.”

“A lot of the [graduate workers] who do grading don’t want their grades to affect people’s housing—it’s not what they signed up for,” he added. “A lot of BUGWU’s fight has to do with the ResLife union as well. We see ourselves as sister unions on campus.”

Since April, student-led protests across the country have become a common sight on university campuses. In protest of the Israeli government’s actions during the Israel-Hamas War, tent encampments—locally at Harvard University, Emerson College, Northeastern University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology—have proliferated amid other forms of coordinated demonstration. On May 10, the New York Times estimated more than 2,800 had been arrested at campus protests in the previous 23 days. As of this writing, most of the major encampments have been formally dispersed; Columbia’s response included canceling its main Commencement ceremony, though other smaller celebrations still were held. The Washington Post reports that many students at Emerson College’s Commencement entered the ceremony with their fists in the air as a show of solidarity with the people of Gaza.

Some graduating Terriers have spoken out as well: a student at the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Graduate Medical Sciences convocation ceremony waved a Palestinian flag with the words “Let Gaza Live” written on it after she was hooded on Thursday. BU cut the live stream of the action, which was showing on the Jumbotron in the Track & Tennis Center. Similarly, at the School of Social Work convocation ceremony at Walter Brown Arena, also held Thursday, a student held up a sign reading, “Neutrality is Complicity” with red handprints as she crossed the stage. A few dozen graduates waved Palestinian flags on Sunday.

Prior to Commencement weekend, the Boston University Police Department designated the area of 278 Babco*ck Street—New Balance Field—as the location for peaceful protest. Robert Lowe, chief of the BUPD, told BU Today that Commencement attendees who engaged in “disruptive activity” would first be given a verbal warning, and then if it happened again, would be removed from the venue and “could be subject to administrative sanctions and/or criminal charges.”

One of these peaceful students was Adam Shamsi (CAS’24, GRS’24), who said that he believes his fellow students have been very clear in asking for visibility into BU’s endowment, to no avail. “We don’t want to disrupt Commencement, we don’t want to make people uncomfortable—it’s a day for celebration,” Shamsi said. “But our BU education has taught us that if we see injustice we have to act, and this is something that BU has chosen to be silent on and I believe silence is complicity.”

“We’ve been incredibly fortunate that the SJP E-board has put in an incredible effort,” said Faisal Ahmed (CAS’24, GRS’24), a BUSJP member. “It goes to show that this is what the people believe in, and we’re incredibly proud to be representing the true interests and ideals of this institution.”

Additional reporting contributed by Joel Brown and Molly Callahan.

Find more information about Commencement here.