For years, many have complained that colleges and universities have almost exclusively invited Democratic and liberal figures to serve as commencement speakers. Despite this country being divided down the middle, conservative families and students are expected to listen to Democratic politicians and far-left figures at graduations. This year, schools seem to be doubling down with figures ranging from Nancy Pelosi (Notre Dame de Namur University) to Jamie Raskin (American University and Goucher College) to candidates like James Talarico (Paul Quinn College). There is no subtlety in their selection or their messages. Pelosi slammed the GOP and Trump while Talarico gave effectively a stump speech on fighting the billionaires.
It is hardly a surprise that administrators and faculty members pick liberal figures exclusively after purging faculty ranks of virtually all conservative and libertarian professors. Despite years of criticism from donors and commentators in the academic echo chamber, these schools show no interest in offering ideological diversity in hiring or at commencements.
Raskin just called for radical changes to the Supreme Court after declaring it “gerrymandered” because he disagrees with its decision on racial gerrymandering. Most Americans find such changes, including court packing, to be reckless and dangerous. Yet, not one but two colleges insisted that graduates who want to attend the ceremony must listen to Raskin.
Talarico is a candidate in a hotly contested political race. Yet, Paul Quinn College insisted on turning the graduation into a campaign event for Talarico, who made many of the same points he made on the campaign trail.
It is hardly surprising that Pelosi used her speech to lash out at Trump and the GOP for destroying democracy. If you are a conservative or Republican, the college expects you to sit there and obediently listen to the diatribe.
I have served as a commencement speaker, and I would never use the speeches to advance political interests. However, I was the target of such a speech. My law school invited one of the most partisan members on the Hill, Susan Wild, who was later defeated.
In a speech to the law students on living an ethical life as a lawyer, Wild accused me of testifying falsely in the Trump impeachment that only criminal acts are impeachable after saying the opposite in my testimony in the Clinton impeachment.
The only problem is that Wild’s statement was demonstrably and undeniably false. I testified in both the Clinton and Trump impeachments that an impeachable offense need not be an actual crime. Wild’s own Democratic colleagues and later the House managers in the Senate Trump trial repeatedly cited my testimony on that very point.
Ironically, before leaving Congress, Wild was accused of unethical conduct in leaking a non-public report against another colleague. At the time, the Hill reported that Wild “was absent from the panel’s meeting last week after being traced as the source of leaks to the press regarding the investigation.”
It is hardly difficult to get speakers who can appeal to both liberals and conservatives in a student body. The problem is not the supply but the demand. Faculty members and administrators want to use commencements as a final opportunity for indoctrination, including inviting a liberal candidate for the Senate to give a campaign speech. It treats its students and their families as a captive audience.
Despite years of criticism over the overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic identity of commencement speakers, faculty are entirely unrepentant. They do it because they can. They continue to use their institutions to advance their own ideological and political interests. Commencements are merely the culmination of that unrelenting approach.
The issue remains whether donors (and legislators for state schools) will draw the line and withhold their support until they see real, not just rhetorical, commitments to intellectual diversity.
For students who must listen to these figures denounce their values or interests, remember this feeling. It is the final lesson on the state of our higher education. The lesson should not be to fight to flip the ideological bias, but to show the integrity and civility that your schools lack. You should no more want your liberal classmates to listen to a conservative diatribe than you would have to listen to a liberal diatribe. Your professors are leaving you with a powerful experience of how power can be abused. You can aspire to something greater in working to restore respect and balance to higher education.
Why does the alleged free-speech advocate always have such a problem with
people freely expressing themselves? Just let it be.
it isn’t the speech, per se, that is objectionable – (morons are free to babble all that they want here) – it is the cabal of progressive fanatics that have commandeered control of the free flow of ideas that has always been germane to the concept of universities (hence the term university as it connotes a wide panoply of ideas) and have turned 99% of education into a no-go zone for anything ever slightly to the right of a blue dog democrat. You want to make this about free speech, then open up all the education industry to wide areas of ideologies and let them compete through debate., What the prog does is cancel any debate so as to protect their tenuous grasp on reality. Those who do not understand this are delulu.
What about freedom of choice?
The choices are different now, anon. Choose between crappier and crappiest. Maybe most crappiest…
No one wants to hear “conservatives” speak. The modern ones are fascist and almost cartoonish evil. The Republicans in Congress are spinless enablers, the cabinet secretaries are actively working to dismantle the US as a free country. The governors are joyfully suppressing minorities. The Republicans on SCOTUS are re-writing the Constitution and federal law to help Republicans.
College graduations are mostly intelligent young people, the same people Republicans are screwing over. Of course they are not welcomed at graduation.
Oh, darling, take the blinders off.
Wow. Trust me that when you say “no one” you are wrong. Conservatives are about half of the country.
I would like to hear conservatives speak.
But I cannot. Far leftist fascists keep shouting, disrupting speeches, use ringtones to drown out the speaker so I cannot hear what they are saying.
Free speech must apply to everyone at UC —not just the radical left
https://nypost.com/2026/05/02/opinion/at-uc-allow-free-speech-for-everyone-not-just-the-left/
I would like to hear comedians speak, but I cannot because a fat orange fascist gets them out of venues and off the air.
Anon, the left comedians are still speaking and the right repeats it with a shocking, lands sake can you believe he said! That’s just in case the right didn’t hear it . Everyone gets their daily dose of indecency and brutes in that way. Duh 😏
Says the delulu indoctrinated tool for the progs. You are too hilarious to take seriously in your slobbering regurgitating of baseless prog talking points.
“No one wants to hear “conservatives” speak.”
Is that right?
I spent 17 years teaching humanities and the liberal arts to undergraduates at a T-1 university. There were exactly *two* well-known conservative professors. Their classes were always packed, and they were in high demand for independent studies. They were routinely invited to speak to campus groups. They were both rightly known as having high standards and for being tough graders. And both were extraordinarily popular with students at social events.
Being bored in their other classes was the students’ #1 complaint. Guess what #2 was? The obvious bias of their liberal professors.
BTW, there’s a connection between #1 and #2.
The American Founders denied women the vote generally.
What the —- are you doing in their country?
Oh, I know.
You’re doing your best, with all of the invading illegal aliens and “community organizers” and various and sundry parasites and leeches, to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America into the Union of American Socialist Republics (UASR), as you reject and fail to do your duty to your nation by vigorously, voluminously, and patriotically making its people.
Am I right?
WORDS MATTER: What makes this pattern especially troubling is not simply the partisan tilt of individual speakers, but the institutional message it sends about whose voices are deemed worthy of celebration at a defining academic milestone. Commencements are meant to unify a diverse student body around shared accomplishment, not reinforce ideological conformity or marginalize dissenting perspectives. When universities repeatedly select speakers who use the मंच to advance explicitly political agendas—particularly from one side of the spectrum—it risks eroding trust among students and families who feel their beliefs are dismissed rather than respected. In a country as politically balanced as the United States, a consistent lack of viewpoint diversity at such high-profile events raises legitimate concerns about whether higher education is fulfilling its responsibility to foster open dialogue, intellectual pluralism, and genuine inclusivity. I think I’ll start a group to contact these schools now for next years suggested speaker.
I sat through a number of commencement addresses before I retired from teaching. I only remember a few of the speakers. Robert Shaw, director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, gave a good talk at my BSc graduation. George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush gave a good one when I was a professor at GWU, the event only marred by a childish grad who stood with his back turned to the speakers. Two speakers I remember for their level of contempt for the graduates or the faculty. Cory Booker recited a whole tranche of fairy tales about his imaginary friend T Bone. We on the dais were forbidden to take photos of Michelle Obama. We were however permitted to gaze worshipfully at her.
There have been only two really memorable commencement addresses: that of George C. Marshall’s at Harvard and Richard Feynman’s at CalTech.
I don’t find turning one’s back to be childish. If my school had brought in jamie Raskin I’d have been inclined to do the same.
in theory, you are correct, but what you also advocate for is the elimination of societal norms in favor of rude politics of an extremely childish nature. Until the prog/left realizes that they are children in their tantrums and chaos and using those techniques to hold on to power, we will achieve nothing at our universities other than conforming to indoctrination. Hit them where it hurts, withdraw government funding and convince any donors that are right of the line to withhold monies until the fanatics have been ejected. These types of hoodlums only understand blunt force.
Professor Turley writes, “They continue to use their institutions to advance their own ideological and political interests.”
And to advance their economic interests, too. Faculty indoctrinate new Democrats; new Democrats vote for old Democrats; old Democrats increase government spending on faculty. DEI administrators don’t grow on trees. It’s a business model as much as anything else.
Most liberals I know are quite infatuated with their money and status. Privately, they think of themselves as the new aristocracy. They’re trying to turn all of America into Connecticut. They’re actually turning America into California, and even Connecticut won’t survive that.
As much as my husband is still fond of the NYC he remembers from his childhood, I do hope mamdani implodes that city to the point of bankruptcy and economic meltdown. Perhaps enough sentient citizens would then see the inevitable and ruinous path that always accompanies and socialist utopian dreams. Progs are like spoiled toddlers who have yet to meet reality squarely on. Fear of becoming the imploding states and cities that we watch decaying daily might urge on enough practical people to end the reign of these deluded children.
When folks say NYC is headed for bankruptcy, I can’t help remembering the headline from 1975: FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD. So what exactly in the last fifty years made it last this long?
Words of wisdom…a business model.
These speakers are on their last political breaths and need to vent before they are totally useless and forgotten. Feel sorry for them — they are as antiquated in their ideas as they are in their positions and ages. They too will be forgotten in time as the statues they couldn’t wait to be desecrated. Just be patient — the road ahead is rocky but eventually common sense will prevail. That is the way of the world…
Post WWII, colleges had a half-century-plus golden window of opportunity that largely included freedom from objective value analysis. In all honesty, the subjective value attributed to a college degree was very often quite a bit higher than an honest cost-benefit calculation would have indicated. Instead of looking ahead to see what they would need to do to remain relevant as the nation and society evolved, the fools guiding colleges and universities almost invariably regarded their status and good fortune as inviolable attributes conferred on them by God or nature, and proceeded instead to lard up their curricula with ridiculous and trivial courses of study that they for some reason evidently found personally amusing. Well, guess what? Not only is the honeymoon now over, the entire idea that a college degree should be a requirement to pursue a profession has been called into widespread serious question, threatening to turn the previous paradigm on its head. Next comes the introduction of AI, both into the professions still requiring degrees, and into higher education itself, which should produce some really interesting turmoil. Good luck, professors and administrators; you are going to need way more than your share of those commodities.
Communism For Communism’s Sake
You do know that World War Eleven was entered into (set up at Pearl Harbor) by the communist, FDR (i.e. Alger Hiss), and America’s course has been all downhill ever since—the communist 60’s “War on Poverty” (i.e. the $30 trillion central planning, control of the means of production, redistribution, and social engineering mass implementation) is America’s longest war and has never ended.
Not exactly a lofty group of speakers. Never really had a politician give any of the commencements I attended. When I graduated in 1970 from Emory University we had Benjamin Mays as our commencement speaker. He was a giant in the Civil Rights movement and 1 year earlier had been elected to President of the Atlanta Public Schools board. He was the first African American to head the office and his speech was thoughtful and informative about civil rights in the 1960’s-1070’s in Atlanta and the US. A great choice. Wikipedia has a good summary of his life and accomplishments although they do exaggerate his record. Atlanta started desegregation in its public school in 1964 and Mr. Mays became president of the school board in 1969 so he did not “supervise it’s peaceful progress” since it was already 5 years into the change and moving to completion. But that is Wikipedia’s fault, not his.
Mr Mays is the kind of speaker these young people should be listening to, not political hacks and has beens. And they need far more than politicians. People of true accomplishment in a variety of fields, both to spur interest, discuss difficulties, turn your mind to wider vistas, learn not to be content but to strive for more knowledge, to give each student a glimpse of the possible and the dedication it takes to reach it.
It’s an honor to give a commencement speech, yet too many people use it for a crass advantage and contribute little to nothing in the marketplace of ideas and human advancement. It’s about the students and you should give them their money’s worth.
GEB – you have the right to edit and modify a Wikipedia article. Perhaps it would be more effective to act and do so?
HistoryRepeats-Not worth the effort. They will just edit it right back. They have a tendency to do that when you go against dogma. I do know about the editing feature. But thanks.
I have always said (including on this site), that it’s really about human nature: the haves vs. the have-nots.
The Democratic party holds just below 60% of America’s lowest and lower-middle income voters. The Democratic Party also touts some of America’s wealthiest, who seem to buy their way into politics to loudly tell the lower-incomes what is best for them (Tom Steyer, Nancy Pelosi included).
But their message is rarely a winning one. It’s more a tactical chess game of taking out the rooks and knights to get their pawns across the board. They do this through media, academia, and institutional control.
(No, I am not severe in my politics. I have voted for candidates from all three major parties. I look for the sincerity of their messaging as well as their plans.)
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship-by-family-income-home-ownership-union-membership-and-veteran-status/
Western civilization is being deleted. The emerging economies are attempting to advance. It’s the third world. This is what their will be for future generations as Christianity will devolve into strings of beads and magic.
The magnitude of this grinding path is truly overwhelming and there is no appeal.
Graduation speeches are seldom remembered.
True, but the topic is the embedded progressive ideology that only permits speakers from the far left spectrum of ideas. The fact that the progs hold so much control over the ethos of a university is the problem as they are only expressing to the public their continued adherence to an unqualified utopian dream/nightmare. The objection is to the endemic infestation of only prog ideology that is the message.
I assume the conservatives and libertarians interrupted the speeches shouting profanities; held vulgar signs depicting them as monsters; and carried with them bull horns to shout obscenities.
Oh wait. My bad. That’s what Democrats and the Left does.
I suspect the conservatives and libertarians in attendance may have disagreed with Pelosi and Raskin, but respected their right to speak and so they sat quietly.
Because conservatives are allergic to smart academic types. They don’t like people who are smarter than them.
Beginning a sentence with “because” without reference to a dependent clause is very low IQ. Keep trying.
Shorthand, you’re good at closure.
Leftists are not smart academic types. They are indoctrinated. That is not the same as being intelligent.
It’s a way for young people to get together. They’re hoping for a date. It means nothing.
“if allergic to smart academic types”, the core may be awareness and support of truth, value, productivity, efficiency, and accountability over sitting below with open mouths eating the s*** produced by those who claim intellectual superiority via indoctrination. You may wish to study the Roman Inquisition and Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) response as he was exiled and his works destroyed “E pur si muove(and yet, it moves)”.
A devalued piece of paper no longer indicates intelligence nor wisdom – it is only a stamp of approval for those who have allowed themselves to be totally indoctrinated into a closed mindset. While academics and other prog ideologues will deny this, businesses are rejecting the new crops of prog-zombies as being to much trouble and not functionable enough to adapt to real-world situations. Sure the universities are cranking out useless degrees that offer only the opportunity to flip burgers, but the end result is the total devaluation of any degree.
Actually I find those that proclaim their own intellectual superiority smug, conceited and insufferable. I think most prefer the company of people of good humor, wisdom and humility which traits seem to be quite rare in our leftist friends at this time.
The problem starts at the university and think-tank levels. Only when sufficient funding by government and right of center donors are withheld and the most egregious fanatics from the far left are subdued, removed, and tossed to the curb as detriments to society and culture, and those institutions then need to start dipping into their endowments, will we see a change in the indoctrination policies of the progressives. If we do not achieve this soon, our culture will continue to be abased and progressive ideology continue to destroy traditional values. Progressivism, as an ideology, does not produce anything of concrete value; it simply lives in the air on untested and false ideas. There is no intrinsic value in following such a course unless you plan to live your life on a private source of money and live in a delulu dream. Talking to a progressive has already been proven to be utterly useless. It is identical to debating with a jihadist or any other such cult member. Only with committed firmness in physically denying this Hydra its source of funding will it even heed a word. I doubt if we have the intestinal fortitude to accomplish this – we can’t even pass the Save act in congress.
The speaker won’t matter much after they have to start paying off their loan. The Education system is run by the most rapacious of capitalists; teaching Marxism is just a cover to keep the attention off the high cost of useless degrees. .
Admit it or not, but young, inspirable graduates ARE buttressed by enthusiastic, uplifting, motivating speeches.
Listening to Pelosi’s and Raskin’s doom and gloom and hate and spate of negativity….must feel like a mouthful of sawdust and water.
Exactly and they’ll forge their own way away from the Pelosis and Schumers.
end Federal Aid to colleges
let capitalism fix colleges! Not fund a Political Army with TAXPAYER money!
There is a visual to Johnathan’s thoughts. It is the scene from Highlander with Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert in the rowboat. Connery is singing the word balance to the notes of the octave. Standing, Lambert loses his balance, falls overboard, and discovers he is immortal and immune from drowning. Connery’s balance was discovery during the lesson. Compare that to leaving the student to find balance after the lesson.
Yep. Got a captive audience to force them to have to listen to one more bought of indoctrination before the can cross the stage. Parents too.
What is this horsesh*t? Whining about a lack of conservative speakers because schools are purging conservatives? The majority of elite schools are private which means they can choose whoever they want and it’s what students want.
And speaking of political stump speeches at commencement ceremonies. So what. Every politician asked to do a commencement speech will end up doing a stump speech one way or another. Even Trump goes off on a political rant at military school commencement ceremonies. This is not new. Schools are going to choose speakers who emphasizes their core values and that is exactly what students who chose to go to those schools expect. If some parents or students are “forced” to listen to these liberals they can choose to not attend. It’s one speech and if they are not going to automatically be “indoctrinated” if they already spent 4 years getting “indoctrinated” by the time they are at that stage. Gimme a break. JT is just looking for a reason to enrage conservatives over an issue that as silly as it is stupid.
(The majority of elite schools are private which means they can choose whoever they want and it’s what students want.) If that is so, then allow these private institutions to continue without one cent of government funds – and that would include any federally backed student loans, any research grants, anything tied to a government entity and any non-profit status with regards to taxation. If they want to be free to be lunatics, let them do it totally on their own dime.
There are conservative colleges that receive public funds, too.
How did the liberals get such a strong hold on the educational system as well as the media? There is nothing left (unfortunate verbiage) for conservatives. The media protects the Left, and has no problem distorting facts to suit their liberal cause, whilst spewing accusations against the Right, especially Trump, without any evidence. They state it, it is accepted as truth and the conservatives suffer. How did such Mass Transformation Psychosis explode so quickly?
Yes. Reminds me of the old saying of “those who can do” vs “those who can’t teach.”
. . . and the truly clueless consult – without producing delivery or efficiency. (proof of concept: big 6 and offshore consulting)
Conference calls are just for badmouthing colleagues.
Remember Woodrow Wilson, the first academic president who helpfully placed fleeing intellectuals of a leftist mindset into our varied institutions of higher learning? Remember Eleanor Roosevelt who worked assiduously during FRD’s terms to place the most radical and progressives within our cultural institutions via the WPA? Remember Tailgunner Joe McCarthy who warned us of the vast infiltration of communists within our media/education industry? Remember Hillary Clinton advocating for the work of Saul Alinsky and his communist manifesto? These are just the most obvious in a long line of fellow travelers who have worked silently to consume our cultural, educational and political institutions while republicans politely refused to intervene?
It’s a type of vudu, spiritual in nature and must be resisted by virtue always remembering they work by traps and tricks.