Americans may not have as many rituals as some other people do, but we have some. One of those is graduation, symbolizing the transition from one stage of life to another and a celebration of a young person’s accomplishments. (We may actually overdo these, as what was once a transition from college and high school studies is now often celebrated from even pre-nursery school. Still, it plays a significant part in life, structuring time and change.) Parents and grandparents who sat through boring recitals, sports events, prize days, supported kids dealing with difficult interpersonal issues, hard courses, college admission hurdles, and sacrificed to pay the cost of schooling can now cheer (or mourn) that those activities are now over.
For all the relatives’ work, they now get to sit in hot, muggy weather on uncomfortable folding chairs and listen to a variety of speakers selected who knows how. I’m old enough to remember when, at worst, we heard boring, anodyne speeches to graduates about making your mark, improving the world, and sharing the blessings of your newly acquired knowledge with a world desperate for the pearls of newly acquired knowledge. Maybe a few dumb jokes were thrown in. Then everyone got their diplomas and headed for the nearest bar.
Socialism: An Economic...
Best Price: $6.00
Buy New $1.99
(as of 06:20 UTC - Details)
In recent years, graduations have become stages for performative, divisive screeds at a largely captive audience. You don’t have to tolerate this. Years ago, I walked out in the middle of some of these speeches at very fine universities, Duke and UCLA law school. I’m not sure the even more offensive ceremonies these days would lure me to stay seated for more than 10 minutes.
You needn’t play prisoner to this nonsense even if you loved your graduate. In fact, if you are ahead of the game in their senior year, you might make it clear to the schools that you expect respectful and non-divisive speakers, or you will walk out, even at the risk of disrupting the ceremony.
At Duke, when I walked out, the speakers chose to alienate the audience by promoting pro-Palestinian nonsense, and at UCLA, in an audience of mostly poor immigrant parents whose children had succeeded in law school, the speaker who rankled me complained there weren’t enough black students in the class. (Should UCLA have refused to admit meritorious Vietnamese and Eastern European first-generation American students whose parents, at substantial risk, fled here from oppression with nothing and no one to help them, to make room for lesser-qualified applicants?)
Highlighted this week are speakers at various Ivies, but it was a typical pattern in many colleges and universities where the psychological and social meaning of the ritual was debased and the participants insulted and abused. I surely haven’t documented all the outrageous behavior, but it’s widespread enough to see how ubiquitous the move is to deprive deserving students and those who love them of a traditional ritual of passage.
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia
In her Harvard graduation speech, Indian American student Shruthi Kumar stood with pro-Gaza, pro-Palestine protesters.
Money: Sound and Unsound
Best Price: $20.00
Buy New $21.43
(as of 03:59 UTC - Details)
At the Harvard Kennedy School, “the elected class speaker used his time to talk about Palestine and Harvard’s complicity in the ongoing Nakba… ‘While we celebrate our graduation, Harvard University, threatened by the student uprising for Palestinian liberation, has chosen to withhold degrees from our peers who have not only fulfilled every graduation requirement, but more importantly who have exemplified veritas through their dissent.’”
A Yale graduate disrupted the diploma ceremony by loudly chanting “FREE FREE PALESTINE,” as the students echoed the chants in solidarity with Palestine.
Princeton University graduates handed the President a Palestinian flag during their graduation ceremony, protesting the university’s complicity with Israel.
Graduating students at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work disrupted their ceremony with chants and banners in support of Palestine. “Turn your back on Silberman, all eyes on Palestine!” “PALESTINE WILL FREE US ALL.”
Columbia: Acting president Claire Shipman was greeted by boos, jeers and “Free Mahmoud” shouts, and a number of grads tore up or burned their diplomas to “Free Palestine.”
