Drew University’s Summit Ceremony, held this year on Monday, April 28, was heralded on the Path as a celebration to “[honor] achievement, resilience, and community.” Its organizers at Drew’s Department of Student Activities branded it as a “new, inclusive celebration that recognizes the incredible journeys and achievements of our students.”
An email announcement of the ceremony, sent out by the Student Activities email address on Friday, March 28, highlights that “whether you are a first-generation student, part of the LGBTQ+ community, or have faced unique challenges throughout your college experience, The Summit Ceremony is an event to celebrate your accomplishments.” The Path description goes further into detail about how it “merges” the traditional celebrations of Rites of Passage, First-Generation Ceremony and Lavender Ceremony (designed to honor students from underrepresented communities, first-generation students and students who identify with the LGBTQ+ community respectively) “into one powerful event that uplifts the diverse experiences of our graduates.”
However, some students are unhappy with these changes, perceiving them to constitute a failure to adequately recognize the historical struggles of specific communities.
Upon receiving the Student Activities email, a Drew student who chose to remain anonymous raised concerns to an employee of Student Life. They wrote in a responding email that while they weren’t sure of the exact reason for the merger of the ceremonies, they spoke from “personal emotion” as a member of one of the recognized communities that “[they had] been looking forward to the Lavender Ceremony throughout college as a moment to be with all of my LGBTQ+ peers in a shared space of recognition,” noting its significance given the dwindling amount of spaces in which queer people in the U.S. can safely celebrate their achievements today.
“When different ceremonies used to be held…it was a mark of specific recognition and an opportunity for community for those who faced specific challenges,” the student wrote, adding that “personally, I feel like having all of these different communities who have struggled in different manners with different histories into one ceremony cheapens the impact and meaning of the ceremony.” The concerned student highlighted that they “understand that the Summit Ceremony will still recognize queer students,” however, it felt to them like a “missed opportunity to continue to give each of the different communities that will be involved in this new ceremony their own spotlight.”
Later that same day, the student received a response from the Student Life employee asserting that the reason for the ceremony merger was in fact due to necessary steps that the University felt needed to be taken in order to allow the celebrations of identity to continue to take place. According to the employee, current political climates in higher education would have forced the University to “[remove] all identity shaped programs coming from universities” anyways, and so Drew would be unable to hold “events that highlight separation of identities and culture.” Due to this, the employee noted that Student Life “took actions to change the ceremony itself and allow students who feel like they want to be there [to attend] without highlighting identity as a whole…it was either make a new [ceremony] or lose it altogether.”
These changes are being made in response to policies put into place by the Trump administration, as the Student Life employee also asserts in their email. The New York Times’ Michael Bender reported on April 3 that the administration “threatened..to withhold federal funding from public schools unless state education officials verified the elimination of all programs that it said unfairly promoted diversity, equity and inclusion. While Drew remains, for the time being, a private university, it still does receive federal funding for many aspects like student aid and Pell Grants as well as a $500,000 grant for federal COVID-19 relief. A memo sent by the Department of Education stipulated that Title I funding, or special funding for schools with “high percentages of low-income students,” could be withheld “pending compliance” with the federal directive.
Many school officials are worried due to the administration’s apparent “[struggle] to define which programs would violate its interpretation of civil rights laws.” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said she was “not quite certain” whether classes focused on African-American history would fall under noncompliance with the DOE’s rules, Bender reports. The department’s rules are incredibly vague, stipulating only that “schools must consider whether any school programming discourages members of all races from attending, either by excluding or discouraging students of a particular race or races, or by creating hostile environments based on race for students who do participate”—leaving many schools confused over what could constitute a violation of the federal guidelines.
The administration’s moves have drawn sharp criticism from educators around the country. Skye Perryman, a chief executive at civil rights law group Democracy Forward, told Bender that “threatening teachers and sowing chaos in schools throughout America is part of Trump’s war on education.” Over $373 million in educational grants have been cancelled by Trump and Musk, and the administration has initiated “civil rights investigations” over issues as small as a single all-gender restroom in one Denver high school—in actions eerily similar to those laid out in the plans for Project 2025, Bender warns.
These sudden restrictions, unclear bans and vague threats are throwing educators across America, and now especially the Drew community, into chaos and uncertainty. Students and administrators alike are unsure where to turn, lest they suddenly lose all funding from the longstanding government programs that previously used to guarantee them the very freedoms which they now risk being pulled out from under them for celebrating their identity and their community. It remains to be seen what long-term effects these changes might have, but the apparently visceral impacts it has already had on things like the Summit Ceremony makes it clear that education in America is incredibly deep into uncharted territory.
Sabr Keres-Siddiqui is a sophomore majoring in political science and minoring in sociology and journalism.
