NYT: USC cancels (Muslim) valedictorian’s speech after Jewish groups object

[GeneralMacArthur]

The University has the absolute right to decide who does and does not speak at commencement.  This is not a free speech or first amendment issue.

The University has also made it clear that she was uninvited from the speech because of worries it would inflame the Palestine/Israel conflict at a very inappropriate time.  This is not a racism/islamophobia issue and the various hacks, including squad congresswomen, who are pretending otherwise are just engaging in disgusting race-baiting and slander.  Frankly, I think USC should have the right to sue them.

As for whether it was right to prevent her from giving the speech, was there good reason to believe she was going to use the speech as an opportunity to deliver a vicious anti-Israel diatribe during a graduation event that Jewish students are attending?  Possibly even including advocacy for the annihilation of the state of Israel and implicit defense of the 10/7 attacks and various other genocidal terror attacks?  Based on her social media activity, probably.  Not to mention on-campus activity we are not privy to but which the university would know about.

Frankly, this is the consequence of being a really outspoken extremist in public and making that your whole personality.  Some people may not want to voluntarily listen to what you have to say.  Which is their right!

Maybe she was going to just give a normal, pleasant commencement address.  I doubt it, but it's possible.  But her activist activity, advocating for disgusting and offensive things that alienated her from her fellow students and school administration, lost her the benefit of the doubt and cost her that opportunity.  Such are the lessons we all must learn when we're young.

[Horus]

The University has the absolute right to decide who does and does not speak at commencement.  This is not a free speech or first amendment issue.

The University has also made it clear that she was uninvited from the speech because of worries it would inflame the Palestine/Israel conflict at a very inappropriate time.  This is not a racism/islamophobia issue and the various hacks, including squad congresswomen, who are pretending otherwise are just engaging in disgusting race-baiting and slander.  Frankly, I think USC should have the right to sue them.

As for whether it was right to prevent her from giving the speech, was there good reason to believe she was going to use the speech as an opportunity to deliver a vicious anti-Israel diatribe during a graduation event that Jewish students are attending?  Possibly even including advocacy for the annihilation of the state of Israel and implicit defense of the 10/7 attacks and various other genocidal terror attacks?  Based on her social media activity, probably.  Not to mention on-campus activity we are not privy to but which the university would know about.

Frankly, this is the consequence of being a really outspoken extremist in public and making that your whole personality.  Some people may not want to voluntarily listen to what you have to say.  Which is their right!

Maybe she was going to just give a normal, pleasant commencement address.  I doubt it, but it's possible.  But her activist activity, advocating for disgusting and offensive things that alienated her from her fellow students and school administration, lost her the benefit of the doubt and cost her that opportunity.  Such are the lessons we all must learn when we're young.

What about Jewish students who are just as anti Israel as she is? Why are these Jewish students always ignored and rendered invisible?

[GoTfan]

The University has the absolute right to decide who does and does not speak at commencement.  This is not a free speech or first amendment issue.

The University has also made it clear that she was uninvited from the speech because of worries it would inflame the Palestine/Israel conflict at a very inappropriate time.  This is not a racism/islamophobia issue and the various hacks, including squad congresswomen, who are pretending otherwise are just engaging in disgusting race-baiting and slander.  Frankly, I think USC should have the right to sue them.

As for whether it was right to prevent her from giving the speech, was there good reason to believe she was going to use the speech as an opportunity to deliver a vicious anti-Israel diatribe during a graduation event that Jewish students are attending?  Possibly even including advocacy for the annihilation of the state of Israel and implicit defense of the 10/7 attacks and various other genocidal terror attacks?  Based on her social media activity, probably.  Not to mention on-campus activity we are not privy to but which the university would know about.

Frankly, this is the consequence of being a really outspoken extremist in public and making that your whole personality.  Some people may not want to voluntarily listen to what you have to say.  Which is their right!

Maybe she was going to just give a normal, pleasant commencement address.  I doubt it, but it's possible.  But her activist activity, advocating for disgusting and offensive things that alienated her from her fellow students and school administration, lost her the benefit of the doubt and cost her that opportunity.  Such are the lessons we all must learn when we're young.

Gmac supports cancel culture.

[GeneralMacArthur]

What about Jewish students who are just as anti Israel as she is? Why are these Jewish students always ignored and rendered invisible?

What does that have to do with any of what I said?  If she was Jewish I think it would have been equally reasonable.

We are in an environment right now where anti-Israel activists are taking every opportunity to create a platform for their extreme and often bigoted views.  It is perfectly reasonable for the university to fear that this girl who was obsessed with being anti-Israel, had made it her entire personality, and had written extreme and bigoted things on social media, was going to do likewise -- take the opportunity to ruin graduation by abusing her platform to deliver an anti-Israel screed.

Being given a platform to speak to the entire school at graduation is a privilege.  It is not a right.  The university has the absolute right to dole it out or remove it at will.  The university may choose who does and does not give the speech based on any number if criteria, including the character and past behavior of a potential speaker.

I think if her rhetoric had been targeted at any other group of people, the case would be obvious.  The reason it's controversial here is because leftists in our society have waged a fairly successful effort to normalize extremist anti-Israel rhetoric, including various defenses of Hamas, celebration or justification of the 10/7 attacks, calls for the abolition of the state of Israel, denial of the history and ethnic class of Jewish people, trivialization of the Holocaust or implications that the Jews deserved it or that "the debt has been paid" because Jews have committed equally heinous crimes in Palestine, and so on.

I could continue.  It's not just "from the river to the sea" although that is the most prominent example -- an explicit and unambiguous call for the destruction of the state of Israel and the ethnic cleansing of the Jews, which has been normalized by a bunch of college kids going "tee hee we didn't know that was what it meant, we meant something totally different!" and then turning around on their social media accounts and going yes actually to be clear I really do mean that Jews are just white Europeans who should be sent back to where they came from and Israel abolished and destroyed with the Western Wall painted with the Palestinian flag.

[Brittain33]

The University has the absolute right to decide who does and does not speak at commencement.  This is not a free speech or first amendment issue.

The University has also made it clear that she was uninvited from the speech because of worries it would inflame the Palestine/Israel conflict at a very inappropriate time.  This is not a racism/islamophobia issue and the various hacks, including squad congresswomen, who are pretending otherwise are just engaging in disgusting race-baiting and slander.  Frankly, I think USC should have the right to sue them.

As for whether it was right to prevent her from giving the speech, was there good reason to believe she was going to use the speech as an opportunity to deliver a vicious anti-Israel diatribe during a graduation event that Jewish students are attending?  Possibly even including advocacy for the annihilation of the state of Israel and implicit defense of the 10/7 attacks and various other genocidal terror attacks?  Based on her social media activity, probably.  Not to mention on-campus activity we are not privy to but which the university would know about.

Frankly, this is the consequence of being a really outspoken extremist in public and making that your whole personality.  Some people may not want to voluntarily listen to what you have to say.  Which is their right!

Maybe she was going to just give a normal, pleasant commencement address.  I doubt it, but it's possible.  But her activist activity, advocating for disgusting and offensive things that alienated her from her fellow students and school administration, lost her the benefit of the doubt and cost her that opportunity.  Such are the lessons we all must learn when we're young.

What about Jewish students who are just as anti Israel as she is? Why are these Jewish students always ignored and rendered invisible?

And immediately we get a deflection to a different issue. Amazing.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I want to add something to my above post.

In that post, I was only talking about the anti-Israel anti-Zionist stuff that has been completely normalized by society.  You can get away with saying "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" these days and most people will still see you as a reasonable, normal person.  You'll keep your job, you'll stay in school, you won't suffer any consequences.

But many of these pro-Palestine anti-Israel people are also engaging in truly heinous and appalling racism, totally dehumanizing rhetoric about Jews, genocidal fantasies, explicit calls for killings and celebrations of murder, open celebration of the 10/7 attacks, glorification of Hamas, denial of the Holocaust, total rewriting of the history of Israel and history of the Jews including 100% fake stuff, real blood libel, drumming up old anti-semitic tropes like Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and so forth.  You see this from many of the most popular pro-Palestine accounts on Twitter, which often feels like a f--king KKK rally.

It has not been normalized by society, yet.  But it's only a matter of time.

Because the thing is, it's often the same people engaging in both.  People who want to put up a socially acceptable veneer will then turn around and retweet accounts like Jake Shields, who openly denies the Holocaust.  People will say "I'm just anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish" and then attack local businesses and celebrities and media figures and university professors simply for being Jewish (see the UC Berkeley thing).

So the whole anti-Israel thing really feels like a classic motte-and-bailey.  How many people who profess in public to only be anti-Zionist are actually steeped in disgusting Jew hate?  The popularity of these anti-Jew accounts and their rhetoric isn't an accident.

Many Jews are willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.  Me, I'm way more cynical and way less generous to people.  I see everyone saying "I'm not anti-Jew, I just really really really hate Israel and make it my entire personality" and then some tweet by a prominent anti-Zionist influencer retelling the "story" of Simon of Trent getting 100,000 retweets and going red-hot viral.

And you know what I think?  I think, none of these people cared that much about Israel seven months ago, none of these people cared about humanitarian crises in the middle east or civilians getting bombed or settler-colonialism or the history of the Jews seven months ago.  But since the 10/7 attacks, they've been radicalized hardcore into being extremely anti-Israel, and they're putting themselves in this environment that's trying its damndest to radicalize them further and push them over the line into being anti-Jew.  If they're not already Jew haters, it's inevitably going to happen, because that's just how peer pressure works.

[DaleCooper]

Why should any valedictorian speech be filled with a bunch of political bullsh-t? Is that common practice now?

[Horus]

It has not been normalized by society, yet.  But it's only a matter of time.

Is it though? Seems like a self fulfilling prophecy.

America is the safest place for Jews in the entire history of our existence and I highly doubt that will change. No one in my family has reported any kind of bigotry etc. since October 7th. Nor have any of my non familial Jewish friends and acquaintances. We were all very angry when 10/7 happened, many of us are even more enraged by Israel's response. Perhaps we just have much more social trust than the average American. I do not think things are anywhere near as dire as you claim **shrugs**

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

is anyone enjoying the neoliberal dems twisting themselves into pretzels trying to figure out how to placate disparate parts of their unstable coalition, orange man bad won't keep it together

I know everyone gets tired of this getting brought up in unrelated threads, but the nonsense pretzel logic they use around trans issues and gender roles is the perfect example of this, trying not to offend feminists or LGBT activists and failing at both. It's what happens when you're just trying not to offend people and don't have real issue positions.

The idea that feminists and queer rights advocates are inherently at odds is pretty ridiculous. Modern feminism is defined by the opposition to the gender essentialism that's fundamental to terf ideology.

Not sure how TERFS are gender essentialist when they're the ones saying gender is 100% a social construct and it's not possible to "feel like" one gender or the other, have a "brain sex", be a man or a woman "on the inside", exc.

I don't have much of a dog in this fight in that I don't think there's enough information to have a strong opinion on the nature/nurture debate regarding gender roles one way or the other, but there's a clear intellectual discrepancy here that needs to be addressed. If the left is going to go all the way onto the trans activists side then that means they're going to have to change a lot of their rhetoric, not assuming any differences in outcome are because of discrimination, not getting mad at social conservatives when they hypothesize about differences between men and women, exc.

For an example just recently I had a friend from college come out as a transwoman on social media who said something to the effect of "I always knew I was more emotional and sensitive and now I know why". When those tradwife influencer girls said "I'm more emotional and sensitive because I'm a woman" they get flamed off the internet but if someone trans expresses the exact same opinion everyone supports it. As noted in the above discussion, they don't have real opinions, they're just trying not to offend anyone who they like.

terfs claim to believe gender is a social construct, but constantly talk about gender issues in ways that betray their deeply held assumption that men and women are fundamentally different. People who actually treat gender like a social construct tend to be the people who strongly support xeno-genders and treat gender like a vibey matter of self expression rather than this thing that we should treat as sacred and unchangable. It's all made up. The only thing that matters about gender is how it makes us feel. Most trans people feel deep distress from our body parts and/or the perception of us by greater society not being what we feel they should be. Medical transition has clear benefits to many of us judging by both the overwhelming opinion of trans people and the reputable scientific literature(Not stuff like the cass "review", which did things like holding studies that supported a pro trans conclusion to a much higher standard of evidence than those that supported the opposite). And of course, if the concept of a "man" or a "woman" is an artificial social construct, than trying to obsessively police who identifies with which category and viciously demonizing people who cross the imaginary line between the two doesn't make sense.

The pro-trans people who bought the lie that gender is a biological thing are generally just people who want to make things better. They don't realize that the box trapping and supressing us is made up, so they try to modify the box to be more accommodating of differences in a way that ends up not gelling well with other things they believe.

If my trademark disjointed writing didn't work for you, here are some video essays from other trans people that explain things far better than I have.

(and gender being a social construct does not require feeling like a gender being somehow impossible. That's not how social constructs work)

[Senator Incitatus]

Why are some (not all) Zionists so incredibly censorious? It's some of the most blatant I've seen in my lifetime, and it is terrifying.

No need to bow to American ideals or standards when you’re going to bat for a foreign power.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Several things I would note:

1.  The Valedictorian was not removed from her position as Valedictorian; she was denied the right to make a customary speech, but the honor of being Valedictorian was not taken away.'

2.   Giving a Valedictory speech is not a reward given because you're special enough to be rewarded with your ideological "coming out" party; it's an opportunity to perform the service of actually ministering (in a secular sense) to the student body and their families in attendance.  It's an opportunity that requires extraordinary selflessness, not an unreasonable expectation for the kind of exceptional person that would rise to the level of being the Valedictorian of a major university's graduating class.

3.   While Jewish families don't have the right to never hear views on the Middle East that run counter to thair positions, this year is difference.  Jewish students have endured threats of violence, disruption of their events, being ganged up on and rat-packed in person, and their families have had legitimate concerns for their safety.  In THIS place and time (maybe not next year, but certainly this year) these families visiting (to say nothing of the Jewish students themselves) ought to be able to have an event that is free from another harangue about how the Palestinians are victims, how Jews are oppressors, etc.

I congratulate Asna Tabassum on becoming USC Valedictorian.  I recognize that the decision certainly seems unfair at more than one level.  But would Ms. Tabassum have been able to make an appropriate speech that served the entire Class of 2024?  What would have been the effect if USC had allowed her to speak and they got it wrong?

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Several things I would note:

1.  The Valedictorian was not removed from her position as Valedictorian; she was denied the right to make a customary speech, but the honor of being Valedictorian was not taken away.'

2.   Giving a Valedictory speech is not a reward given because you're special enough to be rewarded with your ideological "coming out" party; it's an opportunity to perform the service of actually ministering (in a secular sense) to the student body and their families in attendance.  It's an opportunity that requires extraordinary selflessness, not an unreasonable expectation for the kind of exceptional person that would rise to the level of being the Valedictorian of a major university's graduating class.

3.   While Jewish families don't have the right to never hear views on the Middle East that run counter to thair positions, this year is difference.  Jewish students have endured threats of violence, disruption of their events, being ganged up on and rat-packed in person, and their families have had legitimate concerns for their safety.  In THIS place and time (maybe not next year, but certainly this year) these families visiting (to say nothing of the Jewish students themselves) ought to be able to have an event that is free from another harangue about how the Palestinians are victims, how Jews are oppressors, etc.

I congratulate Asna Tabassum on becoming USC Valedictorian.  I recognize that the decision certainly seems unfair at more than one level.  But would Ms. Tabassum have been able to make an appropriate speech that served the entire Class of 2024?  What would have been the effect if USC had allowed her to speak and they got it wrong?

I didn’t have you pegged as the kind of guy who thought universities should be able to preemptively censor student speech based on ideology.

[Horus]

3.   While Jewish families don't have the right to never hear views on the Middle East that run counter to thair positions, this year is difference.  

This is very insulting. We do not need to be coddled.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Several things I would note:

1.  The Valedictorian was not removed from her position as Valedictorian; she was denied the right to make a customary speech, but the honor of being Valedictorian was not taken away.'

2.   Giving a Valedictory speech is not a reward given because you're special enough to be rewarded with your ideological "coming out" party; it's an opportunity to perform the service of actually ministering (in a secular sense) to the student body and their families in attendance.  It's an opportunity that requires extraordinary selflessness, not an unreasonable expectation for the kind of exceptional person that would rise to the level of being the Valedictorian of a major university's graduating class.

3.   While Jewish families don't have the right to never hear views on the Middle East that run counter to thair positions, this year is difference.  Jewish students have endured threats of violence, disruption of their events, being ganged up on and rat-packed in person, and their families have had legitimate concerns for their safety.  In THIS place and time (maybe not next year, but certainly this year) these families visiting (to say nothing of the Jewish students themselves) ought to be able to have an event that is free from another harangue about how the Palestinians are victims, how Jews are oppressors, etc.

I congratulate Asna Tabassum on becoming USC Valedictorian.  I recognize that the decision certainly seems unfair at more than one level.  But would Ms. Tabassum have been able to make an appropriate speech that served the entire Class of 2024?  What would have been the effect if USC had allowed her to speak and they got it wrong?

I didn’t have you pegged as the kind of guy who thought universities should be able to preemptively censor student speech based on ideology.

In terms of events the university would present during the year, you are correct.  Schools should be able to present any sort of speaker during the year, from the far left to the far right and all in between.  Schools should guarantee the safety of speakers and presenters and those who disrupt the event should be disciplined; they are disrupting the free speech of others.

A graduation address by a valedictorian is a different matter.  It is an "assignment"; it is not a free platform.  It is part of a ceremony, and a ceremony is a "program".  A "program" involves structure and framework.  It's not an Open Mic, and it should not be. 

The University has an obligation to ALL of the students, and their families and guests.  Graduation is a CEREMONY; it is not an academic event, and it is not the valedictorian's shot at their own platform.  It is, in fact, an opportunity for service.

[Brittain33]

This turned into a win-win situation for the university and the student.

Her being denied the opportunity to give her speech results in no harassment / politicizing of the graduation ceremony AND she's Streisand-effected her way into the national news where she's getting far more exposure.  

People concerned with the safety of students on campus should be reassured, while people generally supportive of Israel are probably not happy.

[Vice President Christian Man]

I'm not pro-Palestine, but I disagree with this case. I'd support her having to get her speech pre-approved and having the university cut off her mic if she goes off script, but as the valedictorian her right shouldn't be taken away for political reasons.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I'm not pro-Palestine, but I disagree with this case. I'd support her having to get her speech pre-approved and having the university cut off her mic if she goes off script, but as the valedictorian her right shouldn't be taken away for political reasons.

Agreed

[It’s so Joever]

So what if this was a Trump supporter who was strongly a believe in Qanon who also was banned from her speech because of the *possibility* she could incite tensions? This is a clear arbitrary ban based on political views and I doubt most of the posters on here would be okay if the role was reversed and would almost certainly use it as an opportunity to bash the college for “cracking down on free speech” to make themselves seem like good little moderate Dems and not those evil radicals.

[dead0man]

So what if this was a Trump supporter who was strongly a believe in Qanon who also was banned from her speech because of the *possibility* she could incite tensions? This is a clear arbitrary ban based on political views and I doubt most of the posters on here would be okay if the role was reversed and would almost certainly use it as an opportunity to bash the college for “cracking down on free speech” to make themselves seem like good little moderate Dems and not those evil radicals.

indeed, and many of those complaining about this story would be celebrating in your scenario.  People that put politics over consistency are jerks.

[Electric Circus]

So what if this was a Trump supporter who was strongly a believe in Qanon who also was banned from her speech because of the *possibility* she could incite tensions? This is a clear arbitrary ban based on political views and I doubt most of the posters on here would be okay if the role was reversed and would almost certainly use it as an opportunity to bash the college for “cracking down on free speech” to make themselves seem like good little moderate Dems and not those evil radicals.

The university administration reveals just how uncomfortable they are with their decision by emphasizing "security." This is a typical excuse for people in positions of power who want to avoid getting pulled into an argument about the boundaries of acceptable speech.

This makes me reflect on my one first-hand experience with an occasion like this. About fifteen years ago, I knew someone who was awarded a speaking spot at commencement based on a writing contest. He won by submitting the most platitudinous speech he could come up with. He ignored most of what he had written and spent most of his speech talking pointedly about the US's social problems.

The funny thing is, years later, his speech would be unremarkable. Note that this was not someone dabbling in radical politics in service of a safe career path. I'm pretty sure the guy torpedoed his academic career during Occupy, when he briefly made it into a few national stories. Nevertheless, most of his home truths have become clichés. That's what is being contested here.

[AtorBoltox]

It's obvious given the objections to the cancellation are all on 'free speech, right to be anti-israel blah blah' grounds that the valedictorian was going to subject the audience to a narcissistic anti Israel speech.

[AtorBoltox]

Why are some (not all) Zionists so incredibly censorious?

Are you under the impression that Palestine activists don't try to deplatform and ban speakers, scholars, artists for being Israeli - not even for what their opinions are?

Are you under the impression that Horus would consider this to be a problem?

[AtorBoltox]

Has there ever been a movement like the Palestine one that's attempted to monopolise all public places and platforms like this? On the streets, on college campuses, in organisations from tech giants to google to obscure literary societies, its followers demand that the organisation change its goals to providing anti-Israel agitprop. They demand not only total ideological conformity but constant attention. They don't even let people drink at Starbucks ( an organisation with no chains in Israel) without shouting at them that they're complicit in 'genocide'. And before some idiot (Horus) replies with 'wow, so you think they've totally taken over American society,' no I do not. They have not succeeded in their goals because their repugnant behaviour has led everyone to hate them

[Horus]

Has there ever been a movement like the Palestine one that's attempted to monopolies all public places and platforms like this? On the streets, on college campuses, in organisations from tech giants to google to obscure literary societies, its followers demand that the organisation change its goals to providing anti-Israel agitprop. They demand not only total ideological conformity but constant attention. They don't even let people drink at Starbucks ( an organisation with no chains in Israel) without shouting at them that they're complicit in 'genocide'. And before some idiot (Horus) replies with 'wow, so you think they've totally taken over American society,' no I do not. They have not succeeded in their goals because their repugnant behaviour has led everyone to hate them

Maybe the numbers are different down under but support for Israel, and especially support for the Israeli campaign in Gaza, has been steadily trending downward since 10/7. Some Palestine activists are cringe and over the top, I've never denied that, but I think more and more people, especially younger folks who weren't fed a specific narrative their entire life, are growing cold on Israel.

And I'm not big on censorship, deplatforming or trying to ban anyone from speaking. Civil liberties are huge for me. I already said this but you willfully chose to ignore it because for some reason I really get under your skin.

I mean, even normie, business Republican/soft Trump zoomers like Thunder98, who should be the base of support for Israel among the youth, are growing tired of them and calling for a ceasefire.

My views on this conflict has changed. I was pro Israel in this conflict until recently as I had a change of heart. The slaughtering of Gaza citizens is utterly repulsive and has to stop. Bibi is a unhinged lunatic who needs resign. His aggression against Syria, Iran and Lebanon has also caused so many people in the west to turn against Israel. This conflict needs to end and their needs to be a two-state solution plan for Israel and Palestine. I now support a ceasefire.

[Mr. Matt]

USC attempting damage control - they now cancelled other outside speakers at their graduation ceremony this year including Billie Jean King and director/alum Jon Chu

link