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Elite University Withholds Student’s Diploma After He Went Rogue During Grad Speech, Ranted About Palestine

May 16, 2025/in Anti-Semitism, Culture War, Education, Hot Topics, Iranian influence, News, Policy, Politics, Radical Islamic Terrorism, Religion, Social Issues, Terrorism, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

New York University (NYU) is withholding a student’s diploma after he turned his graduation speech into a pro-Palestine rant.

The student allegedly lied about the contents of his speech and instead used his time addressing the graduating class only to condemn the U.S.’s supposed “complicity” in genocide, according to a statement from the school on Wednesday. NYU apologized for the student’s speech and announced that it is pursuing disciplinary action against the speaker.

“As I search my heart today in addressing you all … the only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine,” the student began. “I want to say that the genocide currently occurring is supported politically and militarily by the United States, is paid for by our tax dollars, and has been livestreamed to our phones for the past 18 months, and that I do not wish to speak only to my own politics today, but to speak for all people of conscience, all people who feel the moral injury of this atrocity. And I want to say that I condemn this genocide and complicity in this genocide.”

The student ended his speech after adding the usual congratulatory statement to the graduating class.

Here’s the grad speech that NYU is now withholding the student’s diploma for:

“As I search my heart today in addressing you all…the only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine.” https://t.co/Ngy64yAqJT pic.twitter.com/gDnbJTHmPS

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) May 15, 2025

“NYU strongly denounces the choice by a student at the Gallatin School’s graduation today—one of over 20 school graduation ceremonies across our campus—to misuse his role as student speaker to express his personal and one-sided political views,” the university said in a statement. “He lied about the speech he was going to deliver and violated the commitment he made to comply with our rules. The University is withholding his diploma while we pursue disciplinary actions.”

“NYU is deeply sorry that the audience was subjected to these remarks and that this moment was stolen by someone who abused a privilege that was conferred upon him,” the university continued.

Rising rates of pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses disrupted graduation ceremonies across the nation in 2024, with some schools having to cancel the events altogether.

The Trump administration has demanded universities tackle anti-Israel bias on campuses and has been swiftly punishing schools that refuse to comply, gutting them of billions of dollars.

NYU did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

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‘Will Not Surrender’: Harvard Scoffs At Trump Admin’s Demands To Address Antisemitism

April 15, 2025/in Anti-Semitism, Education, Elections, Hot Topics, Iranian influence, Marxism, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Radical Islamic Terrorism, Religion, Social Issues, Terrorism, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

Harvard University announced Monday it will not agree to the Trump administration’s demands to address antisemitism on campus.

The Department of Education (ED) sent a letter to the Ivy League school April 11 demanding the school agree to a host of reforms, including adjusting and enforcing disciplinary processes, improving screening of international students for “hostile” views and auditing “programs with egregious records of antisemitism.” Harvard cited academic freedom concerns and free speech rights in its announcement rejecting ED’s demands.

“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” Harvard president Alan Garber wrote in the announcement. “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

ED, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the General Services Administration (GSA) initiated in late March a review of more than $8.7 billion worth of grants to Harvard after a September investigation by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce found that “Harvard failed” to discipline students who engaged in antisemitic campus protests. Harvard demonstrators disrupted classes, occupied a campus building and a set up a multi-day encampment.

At the time of the Committee’s investigation, none of the 68 students referred for discipline action regarding their role in the spring semester encampment were suspended.

In its letter to ED, Harvard stated it “is committed to fighting antisemitism and other forms of bigotry” on campus and that it “has undertaken substantial policy and programmatic measures” to address such incidents.

Following the Trump administration’s announcement of Harvard’s grant review, the university preemptively ran to Wall Street, issuing bonds to the tune of $750 million. Harvard has an endowment of over $53 billion.

“Harvard has served as a symbol of the American Dream for generations – the pinnacle aspiration for students all over the world to work hard and earn admission to the storied institution,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in March when announcing the review of the school’s grants. “Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination – all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry – has put its reputation in serious jeopardy. Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus.”

ED has already revoked funding from several other Ivy League universities over their noncompliance with civil rights laws and federal directives, slashing millions from Columbia, Cornell and Princeton.

The Trump administration has been committed to rooting our antisemitism on college campuses after violent protests were allowed to go on for over a year unchecked. In February, the administration assembled the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, made up of the ED, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and HHS. The task force stated its “first priority will be to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses” and has since begun its review of schools’ compliance with civil rights enforcement.

The following month, ED sent letters to 60 universities warning them of “potential enforcement actions” if they did not step up to protect Jewish students from harassment and discrimination.

A Harvard spokesman referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to the university’s announcement in response to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

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‘Calculated Plan Of Destruction’: Twelve Anti-Israel Student Protesters Charged With Felonies

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RELATED VIDEO: Trump GOES TO WAR With The Ivy League

The Pro-Hamas Protesters Who Cause Collateral Damage

June 11, 2024/in Commentary, Culture War, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Jihad Watch

Those pro-Hamas anti-Israel protesters who have been marching along the streets of European cities screaming their antisemitic hate, calling for the destruction of Israel and its replacement by a 23rd Arab state — for that is the real meaning of “From the river to the sea/Palestine shall be free”— have damaged shops, including stand-alone stalls, and by their threatening presence have discouraged customers from entering the businesses those protesters stand in front of, spewing their hate.

More on what anti-Israel protesters did to one business in London’s Kentish Town, a florist’s modest outside stall, can be found here:

Anti-Israel vandals force Kentish Town flower stall to close

by Jane Prinsley, The JC, June 7, 2024:

Anti-Israel protesters in north London have wreaked havoc on a flower stall, damaging equipment and forcing the shop to close.

Florist Natasha Boon faces costly repairs and lost income after her shop was forced to shut down amidst the chaos.

Demonstrators from “Gaza Week Camden” allegedly destroyed flower boxes, damaged the stall’s equipment, stole its electrical supply, and on Thursday forced the shop to shut entirely.

Boon, 32, said she has lost at least £500 in income and will have to spend a significant sum repairing the damage done to her stall’s awning….

The problems began on Wednesday when a planned demonstration surrounded Boon’s stall. The florist asked protesters to move away but was told by the group that the council had approved the protest and they refused to move.

“Then it escalated within minutes and there were hundreds if not thousands of people all surrounding my stall, shouting,” Boon said.

She lost multiple customers throughout Wednesday and had to decline phone orders….

Street traffic for the florist’s stall plummeted to nothing; no one wanted to brave the raucous crowd surrounding her business. And Boon discovered that she could not take most phone orders because she was unable to hear customers over the din of the protesters. And for those she had been able to hear she knew that neither she, nor a delivery man, could wade their way through the mass of protesters to deliver those phone orders. So she simply had to decline all orders by phone.

The protesters harassed would-be customers, forcing into their hands leaflets about the “‘apartheid colonial-settler genocidal state” of Israel, not leaving them alone for one minute to look at the flowers for sale. These customers left Boon’s flower stall without buying anything, in order to avoid the incessant harassment by these protesting bullies.

The protesters vandalized her stall, breaking its canopy, which will cost hundreds of pounds to repair, stood on flower boxes and covered every surface of Boon’s stall with Palestinian flags and their own merchandise for sale, including signs reading “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” and “Say No to Genocide in Gaza,” placed front and center on what was supposed to be a florists’ stall.

For Natasha Boon, a modest keeper of a flower stall, the added expense of repair to the shop’s canopy of 500 pounds will be a major blow. While the stall is in such disrepair, she cannot conduct business as usual. She needs the damaged canopy to be quickly repaired. Coming up with 500 pounds will for Ms. Boon be a terrific effort. And how many hundreds or thousands of pounds in lost business has she suffered because of those protesters surrounding her stall, driving away would-be customers?

How many other small businesses, that allow their owners to just barely eke out a most modest livelihood, the way Natasha Boon does with her flower stall in Kentish Town, have suffered both physical damage to their shops and stalls, and loss of customers, because screaming protesters surrounded their shops, vandalizing them, and kept potential customers well away?

The media are uninterested in the story of the economic damage inflicted on innocent men and women when their businesses happen to be situated where a demonstration is taking place. When thousands of demonstrators converge on a street or a square, driving away customers, and damaging shop fronts or, in the case of Natasha Boon, breaking the canopy of her stall, they ought to be called out for the economic damage that they have wrought on these innocent businessmen and women.

These protesters — many of them well-to-do salon Bolsheviks — don’t give a damn about what their presence means for the businesses to which they block access, nor do they care about the physical damage to those businesses. This collateral damage to innocent shopkeepers just barely making ends meet, by the acts of those often well-heeled protesters, ought to be given more attention, and the protesters themselves become the object of collective ire, for the harm they have done to such people as Natasha Boon, who cannot afford to lose business because of these protesters, so clearly indifferent to her wellbeing.

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