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After the University announced it would no longer host or fund affinity group celebrations for Commencement, Harvard funded an interpreter for a Tuesday disability affinity ceremony but told organizers to distance the event from traditional affinity celebrations held in previous years.

The University Disability Resources office funded an American Sign Language interpreter for the ceremony in the Cambridge Public Library, but according to organizers, officials stipulated that graduating students could not cross a stage, and organizers couldn’t read out the names of the students during the event. Organizers also could not ask attendees to wear regalia.

Instead, Lauren N. Macklin, a master’s student at the Harvard Extension School and event organizer, told attendees that graduates would receive cords colored to match the Disability Pride Flag offstage to comply with the funding stipulations.

“Before we do the cord distribution, it’s important to note that we’re not allowed to cross the stage in this program or put cords on you on the stage,” Macklin said on Tuesday. “We’re going to line up against the wall and do it, and then we’re going to do a group photo on the stage. That’s how we’re getting around the no stage situation.”

In an early May meeting, officials from the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging — which was renamed “Community and Campus Life” — asked event organizers not to market the event with the words “Commencement” or “celebration,” according to one organizer.

Event organizers later spoke with disability resources staff on May 20 and were told that they would receive funding for an interpreter if they avoided mirroring Commencement celebrations with regalia and a stage.

A Harvard spokesperson wrote in a statement that “consistent with its standard practice the University offered an ASL interpreter, which would have been the case whether or not this event was an affinity celebration.”

According to the spokesperson, staff from the UDR met with a student organizer before the event and discussed Harvard’s policy against funding or staffing affinity celebrations. The meeting included a description of what an affinity celebration would entail.

After the organizer described the nature of the event, Harvard did not further consider implications of its new policy because the event could not be categorized as an affinity celebration based on the given description, according to the spokesperson.

But two event organizers said administrators gave them conditions on the event to square Harvard’s support for a translator with its decision not to provide funding or space for affinity Commencement events this year — a choice made in March after the Department of Education demanded the celebrations be canceled, according to two faculty members familiar with the matter.

That decision was not announced until more than a month later on April 29, leaving student and alumni groups scrambling to raise funds and find venues for their events.

Harvard provided an interpreter in adherence to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a federal law which prohibits discrimination based on disability by entities receiving federal financial assistance. Tuesday’s event was held by disabled Harvard affiliates across the University, but some organizers are members of the Harvard Undergraduate Disability Justice Club, a recognized student group.

HUDJ was not the primary organizer of the event but made the ask for the ASL interpreter.

Off-campus student events, such as the one held in Cambridge Public Library, can sometimes be considered programs subject to the Rehabilitation Act, according to a spokesperson.

Several other affinity groups — including Concilio Latino, Veteran Student Society, and the Harvard Black Alumni Society — also held Commencement celebrations off campus, though none have reported receiving University funding.

Athena Lao ’12 — the president of the Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance, which planned a Commencement celebration — opened the group’s Tuesday affinity event by thanking donors who filled in for the University and raised more than $20,000.

“As many of you know, this event almost didn’t happen,” Lao said. “Harvard decided at the very end of April, so just a few short weeks ago, that they could no longer play any role in officially funding or supporting these events.”

“You can guess why,” she added.

Gretchen Brion-Meisels, a Harvard Graduate School of Education lecturer and one of the disability event organizers, said Harvard’s last-minute decision not to support affinity celebrations motivated her to lend a hand in planning.

“I have participated in multiple of these graduations in the past,” Brion-Meisels said. “I also was really frustrated by the late date at which the University let students know.”

“So I wrote this email and said, ‘Look, I’m very happy to provide any support,’” she added.

While the Department of Education only ordered universities to cancel graduation celebrations that could separate students based on race, Harvard’s unsigned email announcing the decision applied the cuts broadly to all affinity celebrations.

Despite the OEDIB’s recommendation that the disability celebration not be marketed with the words “Commencement” or “celebration,” the GoFundMe for the event requested funds for “Affinity Group Graduation Support,” and promotional materials for the event included a reference to Commencement.

Approximately 50 people, including students and their family members, filled into a lecture hall at the Cambridge Public Library to celebrate the graduation of seniors with disabilities.

“We made it against all odds, against all barriers and countless hurdles, both seen and unseen,” Afia A.I. Khan, a graduating HGSE student who spoke at the event, said. “We’re here, and we’re celebrating not just graduation, but everything that it took to get to this point today.”

Correction: May 28, 2025

A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to the Community and Campus Life office as the Campus and Community Life office. This article has been updated to reflect the correct name.

—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.