"Palestine's devastation devastates global conscience"

Sereen Haddad is a determined young woman. At 20, she recently completed a four-year psychology degree at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in just three years, achieving top honors. Yet, despite meeting all academic requirements, she has been denied her diploma. "It's not because I didn’t fulfill the criteria," she explained, "but because I advocated for Palestinian lives."

Haddad, a Palestinian American, has been active in campus efforts to raise awareness about Palestinian rights through her involvement with Students for Justice in Palestine. The issue is deeply personal for her—with family ties to Gaza, she has lost over 200 relatives in the ongoing conflict.

In April 2024, she joined VCU students and supporters in an attempt to establish a protest encampment. The university called the police the same night, resulting in violent clashes. Protesters were pepper-sprayed, beaten, and 13 were arrested. Though Haddad faced no charges, she was hospitalized. "I suffered head trauma," she said. "I was bleeding, bruised, with cuts everywhere. Officers threw me onto the concrete multiple times."

However, last year’s protest was not the reason her degree is being withheld—it was this year’s quiet memorial for that event. The university and campus police repeatedly altered their stance, highlighting concerns that extend far beyond the campus itself.

The conflict in Gaza has eroded many established norms, from free expression to the laws of war. It is not an overstatement to say that the international order of the past 77 years is now in question, as legal and political obligations between nations weaken.

This decline began with the failure of liberal democracies to curb the war. It worsened when no action was taken to prevent attacks on hospitals, then deepened as starvation became a weapon. Now, all-out war is no longer seen as an atrocity but as an official strategy.

The consequences span global, regional, and national politics. Dissent is suppressed, language is censored, and once-liberal societies grow more militarized against their own people.

Many overlook how much has changed in less than two years. But ignoring the breakdown of the international system that shaped generations risks collective consequences.

On April 29, 2025, a group of VCU students gathered on campus to mark the forcible removal of the previous year’s protest.