Michigan
Pro-Palestinian protesters disrupt University of Michigan commencement as graduation season begins
By PHILIP MARCELO (Associated Press)
Protesters chanted anti-war messages and waved Palestinian flags during the University of Michigan’s commencement Saturday, as student demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza collided with the annual pomp-and-circumstance of graduation season at American universities.
The protest happened at the beginning of the event at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. About 75 people, many wearing traditional Arabic keffiyeh along with their graduation caps, marched up the main aisle toward the graduation stage.
They chanted “Regents, regents, you can’t hide! You are funding genocide!” while holding signs, including one that read: “No universities left in Gaza.”
Overhead, planes flew competing messages. One read: “Divest from Israel now! Free Palestine!” The other read: “We stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.”
Officials said no one was arrested, and the protest didn’t seriously interrupt the nearly two-hour event, which was attended by tens of thousands of people, some of them waving Israeli flags.
State police prevented the demonstrators from reaching the stage and university spokesperson Colleen Mastony said public safety personnel escorted the protesters to the rear of the stadium, where they remained through the conclusion of the event.
“Peaceful protests like this have taken place at U-M commencement ceremonies for decades,” she added.
U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro paused a few times during his remarks, saying at one point, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you can please draw your attention back to the podium.”
Before he administered an oath to graduates in the armed forces, Del Toro said they would “protect the freedoms that we so cherish,” including the “right to protest peacefully.”
The university has allowed protesters to set up an encampment on campus but police assisted in breaking up a large gathering at a graduation-related event Friday night, and one person was arrested.
Michigan was among the schools bracing for protests during its commencement ceremonies this weekend, including Indiana University, Ohio State University and Northeastern University in Boston.
Many more are slated in the coming weeks, including universities in New York that have been roiled by demonstrations, including Columbia, NYU and CCNY. Columbia University officials have asked the NYPD to maintain a presence on campus until after the school’s planned May 15 graduation.
At Indiana University, protesters were urging supporters to wear their keffiyehs and walk out during remarks by President Pamela Whitten on Saturday evening. The campus in Bloomington, Indiana, has designated a protest zone outside Memorial Stadium, where the ceremony is set to take place.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in recent weeks in a student movement unlike any other this century. Some schools have reached agreements with the protesters to end the demonstrations and reduce the possibility of disrupting final exams and commencements.
Many encampments have been dismantled and protesters arrested in police crackdowns.
The Associated Press has recorded at least 61 incidents since April 18 where arrests were made at campus protests across the U.S. More than 2,400 people have been arrested on 47 college and university campuses. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
At Princeton, in New Jersey, 18 students launched a hunger strike in an effort to push the university to divest from companies tied to Israel.
Senior David Chmielewski, a hunger striker, said in an email Saturday that the latest protest started Friday morning with participants consuming water only.
He said the hunger strike will continue until university administrators meet with students about their demands, which include amnesty from criminal and disciplinary charges for protesters.
Other demonstrators are participating in “solidarity fasts” lasting 24 hours, he said.
Princeton students set up a protest encampment and some held a sit-in at an administrative building this week, leading to about 15 arrests.
Students at other colleges, including Brown and Yale, launched similar hunger strikes earlier this year before the more recent wave of protest encampments.
In other developments Saturday, police broke up a demonstration at the University of Virginia. Campus police called it an “unlawful assembly” in a post on the social platform X.
Footage from WVAW-TV showed police wearing tactical gear removing protesters from an encampment on the Charlottesville campus. Authorities have not said how many people were arrested.
Meanwhile near Boston, students at Tufts University peacefully took down their protest encampment without police intervention Friday night.
Officials with the school in Medford, Massachusetts, said they were pleased with the development, which wasn’t the result of any agreement with protesters. Protest organizers said in a statement that they were “deeply angered and disappointed” that negotiations with the university had failed.
The protests stem from the Israel-Hamas conflict that started on Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of Gaza’s inhabitants.
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Marcelo reported from New York. Associated Press reporters Ed White in Detroit; Nick Perry in Boston; and Adrian Sainz in Memphis contributed to this story.
Michigan
Urban Meyer reacts to Sherrone Moore scandal after coach’s shock Michigan firing
One of the best college football coaches of all time, Urban Meyer, lent some sympathy to Sherrone Moore — or at least his family — in the wake of the former Michigan head coach’s shocking firing last week.
“Last night, I said a prayer for that family,’’ Meyer said on “The Triple Option Podcast,” speaking of Moore’s wife and daughters.
“I mean, you’ve got three little girls,’’ said Meyer, who won a national title at Ohio State a little over a decade ago. “You’ve got a guy that was on top of the road a week ago.”
That changed in stunning fashion, as Moore, a married father of three, went from leading the Wolverines to out of a job, fired in Ann Arbor for cause after the university confirmed he had an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.
The situation only worsened when Moore was later arrested after he allegedly broke into the home of the staff member, and during an argument, grabbed butter knives and threatened to kill himself.
On Friday, he was charged with third-degree home invasion, a felony, as well as a pair of misdemeanors — stalking and breaking and entering.
Here’s the latest on former Michigan coach Sherrone Moore
Even Meyer, who created some controversy of his own during a brief, ill-fated tenure as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars — when he was seen on video in 2021 that showed him dancing suggestively with a woman who was not his wife and was later fired before finishing his lone season in Jacksonville — was stunned by Moore’s downfall.
“They’re up 6-0 on the Buckeyes at home,” Meyer said of Michigan’s early lead against rival Ohio State on Nov. 29. “And then, also, you wake up, and they’re in this situation. Rivalries aside, this is all human element. Now, this is something that, from what you read, that’s some serious stuff that went on. And just, all of a sudden, you start seeing the impact. Forget football. Who cares about football?’’
Michigan
Yaxel Lendeborg scores 29 points and No. 2 Michigan stays unbeaten with 101-83 win over Maryland
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Yaxel Lendeborg had 29 points, a career-best nine assists and eight rebounds, and No. 2 Michigan rallied from a nine-point deficit Saturday night to defeat Maryland 101-83.
Aday Mara scored 18 points for the Wolverines (10-0, 2-0 Big Ten), who overcame a halftime deficit for the second time this season and the first since they beat TCU on Nov. 14.
Michigan scored 100 points for the fourth time in five games.
Diggy Coit made eight 3-pointers and scored 31 points for the Terrapins (6-5, 0-2), who lost center Pharrel Payne to a right leg injury late in the first half and forward Solomon Washington to ejection after he picked up his second technical foul early in the second half.
Coit scored nine of Maryland’s first 10 points and 22 before the break, helping to prevent Michigan from opening a lead larger than six in the first half.
The Terps lost Payne, their leading scorer at 18.7 points a game, with 4:36 remaining before halftime. Yet Maryland stretched its lead from one to 50-45 at the midpoint, then expanded it to 56-47 on Elijah Saunders’ 3.
Washington, who had a first-half technical for celebrating a 3 in front of the Michigan bench, was called for a delay-of-game technical just after Saunders’ basket. His departure left the Terps without their two most experienced and imposing interior players.
Lendeborg took advantage, scoring the next eight points. Mara’s dunk with 14 minutes left made it 64-63 and gave the Wolverines the lead for good.
Elliot Cadeau’s layup with 21.2 seconds remaining got the Wolverines to 100 points for the fifth time this season.
Up next
Michigan hosts La Salle on Dec. 21.
Maryland visits No. 24 Virginia on Dec. 20.
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Michigan
Aquinas College expands automatic acceptance to 2 more West Michigan high schools
GRAND RAPIDS, MI – After beginning a direct admittance program at one West Michigan high school in November, Aquinas College has now expanded the program to cover more classrooms.
The guaranteed admission program, first implemented for graduates of West Catholic High School with a 2.0 GPA or above, has now been expanded to Catholic Central High School in Grand Rapids and Muskegon Catholic Central High School.
The partnership will apply to students from all three schools entering college in the fall of 2026.
The direct admission program was described by Aquinas College leaders as offering high school students a “clear path to college success” while also continuing to develop partnerships.
Aquinas College, a private Catholic liberal arts institution located at 1700 Fulton St. E, was founded by the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids in 1886.
The college has enrolled 1,262 students during the 2025-26 academic year, and its new student numbers are up, with 419 new students on campus this fall, up from 311 in 2024-25.
The college’s overall enrollment total is just slightly under the approximately 1,300 students Aquinas recorded across its campus in 2023-24, according to a press release sent out in January 2025.
This year’s partnership announcements do not mark Aquinas’ first direct admittance deal.
The college also has a direct admit bachelor’s in nursing partnership with the University of Detroit Mercy, which allows students to take core curriculum courses at Aquinas and nursing classes from Detroit Mercy faculty.
On Nov. 14, Aquinas announced its direct admittance deal with West Catholic High School.
The school, located at 1801 Bristol Ave. NW, enrolled just over 500 students as of the 2024-25 school year, according to an online school profile.
West Catholic President and CEO Jill Wierzbicki said the initiative simplifies the college application process and offers students a straightforward path to higher education.
On Nov. 20, Aquinas then announced it had also partnered with Grand Rapids’ Catholic Central High School, 319 Sheldon Blvd SE, which enrolls 567 students and is the oldest co-educational diocesan Catholic high school in the nation.
Brian Matzke, vice president for enrollment management, said there’s “no doubt that Aquinas here has had more graduates from Catholic Central than any other school in our history.”
On Dec. 10, the college announced another partnership deal with Muskegon Catholic Central High School, 1145 W Laketon Ave., which enrolled just under 300 students in 2023-24, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Jerry McDowell, Muskegon Catholic Central president, said both the high school and Aquinas share a “deep commitment to developing the whole student — academically, spiritually, and individually.
“This direct-admit program provides our graduates with an exceptional opportunity to transition confidently into higher education while maintaining the Catholic values that guide their formation,” McDowell said.
Aquinas’ listed price for traditional undergraduate tuition is $41,192, according to senior director of strategic communications Dave DeJonge.
Students are eligible for annual merit scholarships between $15,000-$25,000, depending on their GPA and housing status. Additional scholarships may be available. This applies to all students who are admitted to Aquinas.
Matzke highlighted the direct admittance program’s easy transition from one West Michigan school to another, with those accepted to Aquinas able to live on campus or commute from home depending on what best fits their needs.
He also said a growing Grand Rapids job market, combined with support from the college’s career center, contributes to a 97% placement rate for graduates.
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