Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Pomp and Controversy on Campus

I’ve given three commencement speeches in my life: at a state university so large there were two ceremonies on the same day to accommodate all the students; at a community college where the sense of triumph by first-generation graduates was inspiring and at one of the storied “Seven Sisters,” where I felt humbled to walk in the footsteps of trailblazing women. All these experiences were moving and memorable (especially the community college).

But given what’s happened on college campuses, I’m relieved I was not in cap and gown this graduation season.

I can only imagine accepting an invitation and then finding myself subject to intense dissection in case I said or wrote or did anything years ago that might offend students today. It’s a strong possibility; my views on some issues have evolved over time, which I hope is a sign of a nimble intellect, but not everyone may see it that way.

The embarrassing series of public figures who were invited to speak and then forced to withdraw suggests that ill-prepared officials are way too susceptible to bullying from a few students and faculty members, and that the tradition of The Speech needs a rethink.

Brandeis officials should have realized that giving an honorary degree to the Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali was going to offend some Muslim students. The school should have reached out and done its due diligence before extending the invitation and, if it still wanted to go ahead, stuck with its choice. Ditto for Haverford and Smith and Rutgers.

After all, commencement ceremonies are scheduled a year in advance. Doesn’t that give a university time to consult with its stakeholders?

There’s another alternative. The best speech I heard at my nephew’s recent college graduation was given by a student. Much as I loved being the speaker myself, maybe this is, finally, a job for someone chosen by and representative of her peers, who can inspire more authentically than anyone else.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.