Student government representatives claim administrators bypassed key procedural steps when they decided to cancel affinity graduation ceremonies and replace live student speeches with videos, proposing a resolution to return to previous policies.

A group of nine Student Government Assembly members supported the resolution in a Thursday meeting, calling for regular graduation policies to “remain in effect,” unless the University Senate agrees to formal changes. The resolution claims the policy was altered “without formally notifying or consulting” members of the University Senate — a group of faculty, administrator and student representatives, including SGA members — citing bylaws that state the University Senate is responsible for determining the “time, place and manner of Commencement Exercises.” 

SSC Alternate Senator Raea Lovett, who proposed the resolution, told WSN that this request was passed “nearly unanimously,” in the Student Senators Council, with just the chair abstaining. Lovett said they also called for an emergency SGA session to hold a vote for the resolution — which was not called by the student government Chair — early next week.

“We decided as the working group of student leaders that this issue was way too urgent to sit back,” Lovett said in an interview with WSN. “When I was writing this resolution, the goal was to restore the status quo of what graduations would look like.”

NYU canceled 13 affinity graduation ceremonies last month, citing the “political climate.” It will also no longer allow live graduation speakers to give live remarks at school-based ceremonies, instead requiring that they record statements. This comes nearly a year after the university faced nationwide criticism for withholding the diploma of a Gallatin graduate who condemed the “genocide currently occuring in Gaza” in his speech. 

If passed by Student Government Assembly, it would be the first piece of legislation the group has sent to the University Senate in two years, when it proposed a resolution to reaffirm protection of on-campus pro-Palestinian speech and civic activity.

“Students had to learn from other students who are affinity group leaders,” Lovett said of the affinity group ceremonies’ cancellations. “That’s concerning, because there also hasn’t been any official statement or official policy that’s been released, and so that’s where the resolution was born from.”

Contact Eva Mundo at [email protected].