Graduation speakers nationwide join student activists and criticize universities' support for Israel amid ongoing protests and cancellations at commencements. Read to learn more.
Speakers at USC and CUNY have withdrawn from commencement ceremonies, while one at Michigan criticized administrators for failing to divest. The 2024 graduation season is well underway, even as protesters continue to occupy lawns on campuses across the nation. But students aren’t the only ones pushing their institutions to divest from companies that support Israel’s war in Gaza; now, commencement speakers are getting in on the activism too. In her May 2 address to graduating students at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, Jodi-Ann Burey, a cancer survivor, speaker, writer, and host of the podcast Black Cancer, used her speech to criticize administrators for refusing to divest from Israel.