Why It Is Wrong to Harangue a Captive Audience at Graduation

I have this essay today on the Academe Blog:

Why It Is Wrong to Harangue a Captive Audience at Graduation

BY STEVEN LUBET

Steven Lubet is Williams Memorial Professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

University graduation addresses are famously bland, featuring acknowledgements and congratulations, perhaps leavened with benign humor, balanced with vague calls to public service, and rounded off with sunny assurances of a bright future. If not exactly an art form, it is certainly a formula that graduates and their parents have come to expect and appreciate. Even political figures avoid controversy during their twenty minutes of podium time, recognizing that the assembled guests are of many minds and persuasions, and no one has come other than to celebrate the conclusion of studies and commencement of the next chapter in life. That is why Steven Thrasher, a newly minted PhD, drew both gasps and a smattering of applause when he used his graduation address at New York University to endorse marching against “that Fascist in the White House” and to praise the anti-Israel boycott movement:

I am so proud, so proud of NYU’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace and of [Graduate Student Organizing Committee] and of the NYU student government and of my colleagues in the department of social and cultural analysis for supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the apartheid state government in Israel.

Thrasher’s closing call for affirmation – “Am I right?” – was met with near silence. There were no doubt many Jews and Republicans, and probably some Israelis, in the room who were offended by Thrasher’s politicization of the event, and nearly everyone else in the audience evidently recognized what was at best an egregious discourtesy.

Official criticism followed. NYU President Andrew Hamilton and Dean Philip Brian Harper posted statements calling out Thrasher for his “one-sided and tendentious address” that “indefensibly made some in the audience feel unwelcome and excluded,” and noting that he had “omitted the remarks in question from the speech [he had] submitted for prior review.”

Thrasher’s defenders include John K. Wilson, whose recent column in this space accused the NYU administrators of “appalling violations of the principles of academic freedom.” Wilson reached this conclusion only by ignoring the special nature of a commencement address, generalizing the reaction to Thrasher as though it applied to all campus speech, and assuming that any criticism of one speaker’s comments will chill all other scholars. (Wilson is right, however, that nothing in Thrasher’s comments could reasonably be considered anti-Semitic.)

According to Wilson, President Hamilton “confessed” that “NYU compels prior review of speeches on campus.” Wilson then assumed, without a shred of evidence, that Hamilton would extend prior review to “many aspects of NYU’s education” that are deemed “inclusive,” and “not just commencement ceremonies.”

Here we have both faulty logic and denial of reality. Commencement ceremonies are unique events at universities. They are not held for educational purposes, much less to inspire controversy or debate, but rather to celebrate the success of the graduates. It is perhaps the one time each year when invited guests – who are entitled to traditional courtesy and respect – greatly outnumber students and faculty. The attendees have not come for enlightenment or provocation, but only to cheer their friends and relatives. Need it be said that guests should not be made to feel unwelcome?

Commencement speakers carry the imprimatur of the university, and it is not wholly unreasonable for the administration to request their remarks in advance, in order to assure that they are suitable to the unique demands of the occasion. To be sure, that is not a practice that most universities follow, and I would not adopt it if I were running the show. But commencement is much more akin to a recital (or party) than it is to a symposium, so a claim of absolute free speech is at its weakest on the graduation stage.

“If the principle of inclusion demands censorship at a commencement,” Wilson asked, “why doesn’t the principle apply to every other decision made on campus?” Well, to paraphrase the prominent educator Big Bird, it is because one of these things is not like the others.  Pre-screening commencement remarks is a bad idea, but it will not lead to “severe censorship on campus,” any more than we need fear a requirement of caps and gowns for classes.

In any case, different events call for different sorts of speeches. Thrasher’s self-indulgent political harangue was simply rude to his captive audience, assembled on a singular occasion for a completely different purpose, just as a call to arms would be out of place in a wedding toast (unless the bride and groom had agreed to it in advance).

Wilson opined that the administrators’ responses to Thrasher were “scandalous,” “chilling,” and “appalling violations of the principles of academic freedom,” when in fact they were only criticisms of his choice of platforms. No one has ever suggested that Thrasher should be punished or prevented from advocating his political views, regarding President Trump, Israel, or anything else, in any other setting.

The NYU chapter of the AAUP has also issued a statement in support of Thrasher. “We believe that any official rebuke of speech on campus is a grave threat to fundamental tenets of academic freedom,” it reads, adding, without explanation, “there is no reason why commencement addresses should be considered a ‘special’ category of speech.” But as Hank Reichman observed three years ago on the Academe Blog, a graduation address, unlike a lecture or seminar, allows no opportunity for questioning, rejoinder, or response.

Writers in this space have not always asserted that criticism is an assault on academic freedom. Earlier this year, DePaul students demanded the censure of Philosophy Professor Jason Hill for publishing an article in The Federalist that was hostile and demeaning toward Palestinians. Hill’s essay was also decried by Acting Provost Salma Ghanem, and the DePaul Faculty Council thereafter voted to “condemn[] in the strongest possible terms both the tone and content of Professor Hill’s article.”

According to the Academe Blog, however, there was nothing chilling about DePaul’s condemnation of Hill’s essay: “There is no call for censorship here. The petition asks for the university to censure Hill, which means criticizing him, not silencing anyone.”

I agree with the blog writer, who happens to have been John K. Wilson himself. Regrettably, however, Wilson’s views appear to be highly selective. He disdains Hill’s deeply offensive essay (as do I), and then concludes that DePaul’s official condemnation did not threaten academic freedom. But criticism of Thrasher, who shares Wilson’s antipathy toward Israel’s government, turns out to be a campus-shattering scandal. I would prefer to see academic freedom standards applied equally, without regard to Middle East politics or other contentious issues. Criticism is not censorship and it therefore did not violate the academic freedom of either Jason Hill or Steven Thrasher, chillingly or otherwise.

Comments

[John K. Wilson]

Steven Lubet wrongly accuses me of hypocrisy. I do praise student protesters who call for official condemnation of offensive professors rather than censorship, because condemnation is a much, much less severe threat to free speech. But that doesn’t mean I think top administrators should agree to denounce faculty (or even the lesser danger of condemnation by a faculty council, as happened at DePaul after my blog post was written). Top administrators should be reluctant to denounce faculty or students for their political views, because of the chilling effect it can have on the campus. Nevertheless, I believe that academic freedom also protects the right of administrators to speak.

What NYU did, however, goes far beyond “official criticism” and into censorship. When a university demands prior approval of speeches, that is a form of censorship. When a university announces that if it had known what Thrasher was going to say, he would have been banned from speaking, that is a form of censorship. When a university declares that Thrasher would have been banned from speaking if they had read his tweets, that is a form of censorship.

Commencement ceremonies may be unique events, but they are still held by universities, and they should still meet the basic standards for intellectual activity and free expression that universities are supposed to uphold. We should reject Lubet’s naive belief that administrators freely allowed to censor a commencement speech would never consider engaging in repression at another time when the spotlight is off them. You may agree with Lubet that commencement addresses should be bland or you may agree with me that they should be provocative. But we should all agree that it’s wrong for universities to censor speakers, even (and especially) at commencement.

[Steve L.]

It is good to learn that John K. Wilson believes that administrators have the academic freedom to criticize speakers, although you would not have known that from reading his original post. I trust that means he rejects the NYU AAUP’s position opposing all “official rebuke[s] of speech” on campus. In the Hill case, Wilson endorsed official censure of a professor’s published work, which then actually happened in the form of a statement from the acting provost and condemnation “in the strongest possible terms” by the Faculty Council. It is odd indeed that Wilson considers this less generally chilling than the criticism of Steven Thrasher. Virtually every academic publishes essays from time to time, but only a handful will ever speak at a commencement ceremony. Subjecting publications to censure would affect far more faculty than criticism of a graduation speech.

If Wilson had limited his original post to the issue of advance approval – which I also reject – I probably wouldn’t have replied. But he is nonetheless wrong in his sweeping claim that the administration cannot vet graduation speakers for appropriateness, even if it is based on extra-mural tweets. No major secular university is likely invite Congressman Steve King to give the commencement address, for example, due to his highly offensive statements about immigrants and others. Thrasher is not in that category, or even close to it, but there are any number of potential speakers – some of whom are quite well known and accomplished – who can and should be ruled out because of tweets and other statements.

Wilson calls me naïve because I question his assertion that reasonable guidelines for commencement – leading only to ex post criticism – will lead to “repression” elsewhere. But Wilson’s argument goes beyond the standard slippery slope into a predicted avalanche. He has the burden of proof on such a connection, requiring him to tell us where and when that has ever happened. There is one well known instance where it did not. In 2014, Brandeis University withdrew an invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had been scheduled to receive an honorary degree and present the commencement address. Whether that was right or wrong, the disinvitation was not followed by “repression at another time when the spotlight” was turned away.

[PaulB]

Prof. Wilson, if Thrasher had given a speech criticizing the use of racial preferences in college admissions and employment, would that change the language that you (and the AAUP) would have used?

[Winnie]

This is why there should be no speeches at commencements. Son graduated from London School of Economics. Opening remarks by head of school, each grad called on stage to get diploma. Done in under 90 minutes.