George Washington U Bans Student Commencement Speaker From Campus After Speech Calling to Divest From Israel
22nd May 2025
George Washington University says it will ban a student commencement speaker from campus after she used her graduation speech to decry “genocide” in Gaza and urged her graduating class not to donate to the school until it agrees to divest from Israel.
Pro-Israel students and alumni had urged the school to discipline the speaker and a dean who thanked her for “sharing your words and your views.” The dean’s profile no longer appears on GWU’s website.
It is at least the second prestigious university this season to take disciplinary action against a student commencement speaker for remarks related to Israel. New York University said it would withhold the diploma of a speaker there who denounced “genocide” and “atrocities currently happening in Palestine” in his speech last week.
She ought to be expelled and her degree revoked.