An MA graduation ceremony was interrupted by a pro-Palestine speech delivered by a graduating student on Tuesday (14/04), condemning the University’s “partnerships with companies fuelling the war in Gaza”.

In their speech, the protester said: “Your [the University’s] partnerships with companies fuelling the war in Gaza […] cover you in blood.”

They continued: “If you are here graduating today, the University wants your money. Think about where that money is going, and the destruction and death it is causing. Cambridge University and Jesus College: as long as there is no justice, you will know no peace.”

They ended their speech by saying: “Free Palestine. Free all oppressed people,” before receiving some applause from attendees. An administrator then demanded: “Quiet, please.”

In an Instagram post by the groups Cambridge for Palestine, Cambridge Artists 4 Palestine, the Organisation of Radical Cambridge Activists for Environmental Liberation (ORCA), and Project Unite Humanity, the activists claimed that the graduate disrupted the ceremony to hold the University to account for their “complicity” in Israel’s “genocide against Palestinians”.

They alleged that “University constables responded by seizing the protester’s speech notes and threatening to arrest them for holding up a Palestine flag,” adding that the constables described the disruption as “deeply selfish” and said the student would be “going to prison” if they did not leave.

In the post’s caption, the activist groups claimed that the University’s endowment fund “has poured millions into companies supplying Israel with weapons […] they use to surveil and slaughter Palestinians and decimate their homes, schools, and hospitals”.

In February, Middle East Eye reported that the University had invested in a fund with stakes in firms linked to human rights abuses by the Israel Defence Forces. The report revealed that, in the final quarter of the 2025 financial year, the University’s endowment fund invested £140 million in the iShares ESG Select Screened S&P 500 fund, which holds shares in companies including Palantir, Caterpillar, and GE Aerospace.

The activist groups called for the University and its colleges to disclose their investments, “cut ties” with companies supplying weapons to Israel, and “invest in reparations to help rebuild, instead of destroy, a future for the people of Palestine”.

A video of the interruption posted on Instagram received nearly 1,500 likes within a few days.

Last May, another graduation ceremony was disrupted by a graduating student to protest the University’s “complicity” in “genocide in Gaza”. The action broke a four-month High Court injunction against protests in Senate House, granted to prevent disruption at the 12 graduation ceremonies taking place that year.

One student attending the graduation last year told Varsity that they felt this way of protesting was “wrong,” “frustrating” and “unfair”.

A pre-graduation dinner at Jesus College was also disrupted the week before by a demonstration staged by ORCA, which said it was protesting the University and the College’s “complicity in greenwashing systemic ecocidal harm”.

Handouts distributed by protesters stated: “Suzano’s partnership with Jesus College in the name of ‘sustainability’ gives it a chance to wash its hands of these sins and claim that it is on the side of people and planet.” Protesters also held a banner reading: “STOP GREEN WASHING COME CLEAN”.

In November 2024, Jesus College and the University of Cambridge announced a partnership with Brazilian biomaterials company Suzano, despite the firm having been accused of mistreatment of indigenous communities and environmental greenwashing.

According to a statement from Jesus College, the Suzano Scholars’ Fund, made up of a £10 million donation, was to be used to “support education and research into areas including the conservation of biodiversity, enhancing business sustainability, and the restoration of natural habitats in Brazil and beyond”. The funding was offered to postgraduate Brazilian nationals studying Cambridge degrees related to “the environment, ecology and conservation,” as well as academics at the University’s Conservation Research Institute.

At the time, Beto Abreu, CEO of Suzano, said: “we know that unless the world takes urgent action to protect biodiversity and tackle climate change, we are facing irreversible loss and damage to ecosystems […] We know we cannot act alone, so through this collaboration with Jesus College and the University of Cambridge we want to support some of the world’s brightest minds to undertake the research […] that will be needed to overcome these challenges.”

A spokesperson for Suzano also told Varsity that the Oxford-based NGO Global Canopy ranked the company second globally in its latest Forest 500 ratings, published last week, after placing it first last year.

In an Instagram post, ORCA, Cambridge for Palestine, and Cambridge Artists 4 Palestine demanded that the University and the College “cut ties with Suzano and stop laundering the reputations of companies that hoard land” and “harm people”.

The groups also claimed that a porter tried to steal the protesters’ megaphone “to stop us calling them out”.

Jesus College and the University of Cambridge were contacted for comment.