After Anti-Israel Speeches, a Law School Curtails Graduation Traditions
The New York Times
CUNY Law School is known for its diversity and activism, and lately for strongly worded pro-Palestinian commencement addresses. This year, the administration canceled its annual student speech.
For the past two years, commencement speakers at the City University of New York School of Law have made support for Palestinians and opposition to Israel a focus of their speeches.
The backlash was intense.
So this year, well before other campuses across the United States faced upheaval over pro-Palestinian student demonstrations, the CUNY law school administration took a new tack. In September, before the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the school announced that there would be no student speaker at all at this year’s commencement ceremony.
The choice is now drawing its own backlash and has brought more controversy to the event.
This spring, several students at the school sued university officials, saying that the school was suppressing speech and infringing on their First Amendment rights by not allowing a student-elected speaker to give an address. Two guests who had been scheduled to speak — Deborah N. Archer, a civil rights lawyer and president of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Muhammad U. Faridi, a litigator — recently withdrew from the event.
The ceremony will now have no outside speakers and no keynote address, the law school said.
