Advanced Degree Students Trickle In With Symbols of School Pride and Protest

The Yard pulses with celebration as the procession of advanced degree candidates begins. “Fair Harvard” plays over the loudspeakers, blending with the wail of bagpipes and a rising tide of cheers, applause, and camera flashes. Students in black and crimson robes file into Tercentary Theatre, their steps steady and joyful.

True to tradition, many graduate schools brought small emblems of identity and purpose. Harvard Divinity School students unfurled a long teal ribbon, Harvard Extension School carried genie lamps, and Harvard Business school waved small red flags.

Graduates from the Harvard Business School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Harvard Medical School have all filed into the Tercentenary Theatre with props in hands and smiles on their faces.
HBS graduates waved red flags with an HBS logo, while HSPH graduates created commotion with branded clappers.

Several HSPH graduates proudly flaunted decorated mortarboards with messaging related to the war in Gaza and the Trump administration's attack on research funding. One student’s cap read “Fund Research Not Bombs” in what appeared to be a reference to the White House’s nearly $3 billion cut in federal funding to Harvard.

Harvard Kennedy School students, walking up Plympton Street, carried small inflatable globes. Harvard’s public policy school is also its most international. Two students held a banner reading “Education Not Deportation.” Several carried signs reading “If They Come for Me in the Morning” and others completed the message — “They Will Come for You at Night.”

—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.