The Dilemma of Graduation Speeches

 

It’s graduation season.  Curmie’s Facebook page has been awash for a fortnight or more with celebratory posts from friends who attended festivities for their sons and daughters, grandkids,  or students.    (A lot of  Curmie’s former students are teachers now.) All this got Curmie thinking about the exercises themselves, especially the speeches.  These have provided source material for Curmie several times, whether they were delivered by graduating seniors (here, here, and here) or guest speakers.  This year, though, it’s more about the speeches that didn’t happen.  Curmie wrote about that phenomenon before, too.

This time, though, we’re not talking about a single disinvitation, but several.  An article by FIRE’s Sheridan Macy and Charlotte Arneson highlights several incidents.  Curmie had mentioned the situation at Utah Valley in passing a couple of weeks ago, but Macy and Arneson added Rutgers, Georgetown Law, Drexel’s College of Computing and Informatics, NYU, South Carolina State, Southern California, MIT, George Washington, CUNY Law, and Stanford.  (Note: a couple of these were from previous years.)  Roughly half of the attempts to deny a podium are ultimately successful.  That’s kinda scary.

Predictably, FIRE isn’t happy about these variations on the theme—disinvitations, speakers “voluntarily” withdrawing, denial of student speeches, etc.  On the one hand, it’s difficult to argue with FIRE’s contemplation of 1st Amendment implications, or indeed with their conclusion that “in making these cowardly decisions to revoke invitations or limit student speech, universities often only succeed in creating new or additional controversy while eroding already crumbling student and faculty trust in university administrations to protect speech.”

This is especially true at, say, Utah Valley, where prospective speaker Sharon McMahon, despite pronouncing herself “gutted” by the murder of Charlie Kirk, also provided some context, quoting some of Kirk’s more bigoted proclamations, and writing “These aren’t sound bites taken out of context. Millions of people feel they were harmed, and the murder that was horrific and should never have happened does not magically erase what was said or done.”  That was enough, of course, for Republican pols like Rep. Burgess Owens to be sore offended and to try throwing his weight around.  And the UVU administration caved.  Of course.

More understandable but still problematic is the situation at South Carolina State, an HBCU that invited an avowed opponent of DEI initiatives, GOP Lieutenant Governor (and gubernatorial candidate) Pamela Evette.  There are a couple of issues here.  First, why would Evette be invited to begin with?  She certainly seems a strange choice for an HBCU.  Was there some sort of political positioning going on?  To show ideological diversity?  Was the university under some sort of threat, whether stated or implied?  Was the invitation really from SCSU, or did Evette sort of invite herself and expect the university to go along?

Second, it appears that there wasn’t even a public announcement that Evette was to be the speaker before a student-generated petition gathered some 20,000 signatures (that’s over six times as many folks as there are students at SCSU!), and President Alexander Conyers backed away from the invitation, citing security concerns, just as had appeared as the official reason for disinviting McMahon at Utah Valley.  

Is that the real reason?  Possibly, but Curmie isn’t betting the ranch, and FIRE has even less faith than Curmie on this one.  It certainly seems that “security concerns” are the contemporary version of “potential for disruption,” a phrase that has been used as an excuse for 1st Amendment violations for years, especially but not exclusively at the high school level.  More importantly, Evette isn’t buying the rationale, either, and is threatening to withhold some $35 million in state funding to the university.  FAFO on one side; self-righteous pettiness on the other.  Jolly.

OK, so one university buckled to pressure from the right, and another one buckled to pressure from the left.  We’ve also seen prospective speakers cancelled or otherwise censored because they unreservedly support Israel (Georgetown Law), and others because they condemn Israel (NYU, Southern Cal, MIT).  FIRE is right about the need for free speech.

Except.

Inviting someone to speak at graduation is different than simply bringing them to campus for a speech.  In every other case, students can simply not attend (unless the handful who may be required to do so as a course requirement).  Missing one’s own graduation is a different matter.  And if there’s one thing you can take to the bank, Gentle Reader, it’s that politicians are incapable of doing what is expected of ethical adults, and a lot of other folks are, too.  

It is perfectly fine if a graduation speaker is controversial, but the speech shouldn’t be.  Congratulate the grads, tell a couple of jokes, give some advice about negotiating the steps ahead, and say something a little inspirational without talking about politics or religion or the other topics you avoid at Thanksgiving dinner because of your weird Uncle Howard.  Then shut up and sit down.  Curmie is not a fan of the death penalty, but he’s willing to make an exception for graduation speakers who go more than 15 minutes (unless there is a lot of applause or laughter that slow things down): no one is there to listen to you, dude.  (“Dude” in the previous sentence is, of course, non-gender-specific.)

Curmie stopped going to graduations at his former employer, opting instead to use that three hours or so to reduce some of the pressure of Grading Hell, after one particularly outrageous speech given by some fairly high-ranking state official (comptroller, maybe?).  Not only did she address the assembled graduates as students of our arch rival on three occasions (yes, really!), she pretty much concentrated on why everyone in the room should vote for Republicans.  These people, pols of whatever stripes, can’t help themselves.  You can tell them not to alienate half their audience.  They nod agreement, then do it, anyway. 

If I’ve invested four (or more) years of my life and accumulated a few tens of thousands of dollars in debt to get a degree, I don’t want to have my celebration marred by someone spouting political opinions with which I disagree.  Even if, as was the case when Harrison Butker spoke at Benedictine College two years ago, it’s a reasonable assumption that a significant majority of the students and their families will agree with the speaker, there’s a difference between “significant majority” and “unanimity.”  Why alienate anyone at their own graduation ceremony?

I don’t want to listen to the political rhetoric of people I agree with, either—not at graduation.  I might think that person over there is racist, or homophobic, or anti-Semitic, or too Woke to be palatable, or whatever, but give them a bit of grace on their special day, at least.  One of the playwrights Curmie wrote about in his dissertation said it beautifully when I interviewed him: “we are more alike than unalike.”  We’re all facing the future together; maybe we should act like it.

Of course, especially at the post-secondary level, if the school has done what they should have done, i.e., developing skills of critical thinking, the assembled graduates will be fully capable of recognizing the flawed logic, the unsupported assertions, and the oh-so-casual omissions.  You’re not going to recruit anyone to your side, and the people who already agree with you just want you to shut up so they can go celebrate with their families.  There are plenty of opportunities to express your political opinions.  Don’t misuse a forum just because you can.

One last thing: apparently a couple of universities have instituted a policy whereby the speakers will be on stage, but their speeches will be pre-recorded and played on screens behind them.  This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever; all it does is advertise the school’s distrust of the person they hired to give the address, and prevent any real interaction between the speaker and the audience.  There’s no need for speakers to appear in person if their comments aren’t going to be live and responsive to the reception of the students (in particular).  Censorship and money-wasting: what a happy combination!

Curmie confesses that he can’t remember who spoke at his own graduation, and the only keynote about which he has literally any positive memories was delivered by a faculty colleague 30-something years ago.  Beyond that, nothing has happened in the however many (25? 30?) graduations Curmie has attended would make him mourn the demise of the keynote address altogether.  But if we’re going to have one, and a lot of people think they’re a sine qua non, then we need to avoid the following if at all possible a). the powers-that-be invite a completely inappropriate speaker (all politicians are inappropriate), b). the speaker, whoever that may be, decides that being divisive is a good idea, and c). the protesters fail to grow up.  In other words, this is an insoluble problem.  Alas.