A group of students graduating from University of Maryland Baltimore’s School of Social Work are protesting keynote speaker U.S. Senator Ben Cardin for his support of Israel.
At Friday’s ceremony, around 30 students entered the Lyric Opera House wearing traditional Middle Eastern keffiyehs and carrying Palestinian flags to show solidarity with Gaza on their graduation day. Around 200 students received their masters degrees in total.
And when Cardin started speaking, protesting students stood and turned their backs to him — holding signs calling for a ceasefire. They also placed a banner reading “Let Gaza Live” in the back of the event hall.
“This is about a larger issue,” said one organizer of the protest, who requested anonymity out of fear of professional retaliation. “Funding genocide is not a social work value. And by platforming someone who is actively supporting this immense violence, both the university and our school leadership are essentially signing off on that violence.”
Cardin did not react to or address the protest during his remarks.
Representatives from the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Social Work did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
In November, Cardin said that he does not support a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. The chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also said he doesn't want any limiting conditions on U.S. aid to Israel.
“Not only have Cardin's actions regarding this conflict been antithetical to social work values, they have been antithetical to Jewish principles of social justice,” said another student organizer, who is Jewish.
The protest organizers also said school leaders acted in opposition to student feedback — including a list of student-recommended commencement speakers and a petition after Cardin’s selection calling for a new choice.
“There are talking points that the university is using that would have people believe that this was a student-led effort,” the first student organizer said. “We didn't choose this; we don't think this is a good person to represent us.”
He said he found out that Cardin was the speaker by looking at the commencement website.
“I was looking on there to get some logistics from my extended family that's coming,” he said. “And I was floored. I was just like, ‘this cannot be how I find out.’”
Usually, the students said, school leaders send out email blasts with important announcements like these. But this time, they didn’t – which felt “purposeful.”
The organizers said they were inspired by local college protests like the Johns Hopkins University encampment – which is no longer standing. To follow in their footsteps, they worked diligently to ensure the protest was nonviolent.
“We are trying to be respectful of the fact that this celebration is important to a lot of people, while balancing the fact that some people's inconvenience is not worth more than the focus, which is all of the people dying right now,” one leader said.
A handful of audience members also joined the students in standing with their backs facing Cardin.
