NYU canceled 13 culture, identity and faith-based graduation ceremonies last week.
This was a sane and necessary move, though NYU’s weenie administrators blamed the decision on the “current political climate” rather than making the important,unequivocal statement that all graduating students are the same in the eyes of the school, and that splitting up graduations by tribes, nationalities, races and sexual orientation is divisive, destructive and irresponsible.
Now student groups are demanding that NYU rescind the order. Good job, NYU! You did this. You indoctrinated them to think this way.
As it stands, there will be a single graduation celebration at the school’s Paulson Center.“There can’t be stoles or alumni speakers, all of these things that would typically be part of a graduation can’t be a part of that end-of-year celebration,” a member of the affected LGBTQ+ Affinity Group. “To me, that’s a pretty startling restriction of student speech.”
That’s because you haven’t learned what restricting student speech means. Go look up the Supreme Court decisions. Show us the rulings that say a university has to promote the fragmenting of the graduating class in official group, tribe, or religious ceremonies.
Students who don’t want to celebrate their graduation with those evil whites, those bigoted straights, those mean Christians, those genocidal Jews and toxic males have organized an activism group called “Our Stories, Our Stage” to lobby the school to reinstate the events. There is also a petition with garnered 1,400 signatures, claiming that the cancellations are an attempt “to appease the current administration.”
“Whether you’re in your first or last year of your undergraduate or graduate degree, faculty, alumni, or ally, the cancellation of the affinity groups is setting a dangerous precedent for anyone associated with NYU, or other higher educational institutions,” the petition reads. “NYU has now shown it is willing to throw its students under the bus in exchange for money.”
Boy, what a damning, biased, illogical petition. Showing students that the school supports unity, comity and mutual respect among all Americans and human beings is “throw[ing] its students under the bus.”
NYU did not respond to requests for comments. My comment is that this sick and corrosive culture has been allowed to flourish on campuses for decades, and purging it is a massive if not a hopeless task.
Ethics Alarms 
Basic problem: The inmates are running the asylum. Students have been brought to the point where they believe they are in charge of colleges and universities. The concept that the administration determines how a graduation ceremony is conducted is simply beyond their comprehension. I think this is the result of student reviews of their courses. Students have been handed the ability to essentially hire and fire faculty. They, not the faculties and not the administrations, are truly in charge. They are the consumers; the schools are simply the sellers trying to keep their customers happy.
Absolutely correct and when you factor in the potential loss of student aid for holding students to responsible for actually participating in the process of learning the idea of actual behaving as though the administration and faculty set the standards goes out the window.
Been there, seen it first hand. Being “student centered” means we will accommodate all student wants.
I learned that the hard way from working in a college. A student recently passed an introductory course that had no business doing so. Some professors will stand their ground and fail students in intro courses, but some won’t. This particular professor did not.
The student is now in new classes, and neither professor so far has been willingly to baby this person, and she is struggling MIGHTILY. College is supposed to be about intellectual and moral formation (in the good sense).
I feel for this student because of how sympathetic she is, but some people just aren’t equipped, even for an intro level class.
It’s good to see NYU taking a stand, ben if it’s not exactly for the right reasons.
Our son is 21 years old. He graduated in December from Texas A&M Mays School of Business with a finance degree. There were numoerous graduation ceremonies s across the colleges in December. That makes sense. Having one graduation for all schools or departments would have resulted in an interminally long ceremony. Thankfullly, A&M has not encouraged multiple graduations for all the chosen identities. Though, thinking about it now, it there were a graduation ceremony for cis-gendered (whatever that means) male students identifying as “cisgender male finance students” the ceremony would have taken about 17 minutes.
What the NYU student does not seem to understand is that his/her/their chosen identity/ies can still have his/her/their identity ceremonies but not sanctioned by NYU. They can invite his/her/their speakers and he/she/they can celebrate in his/her/their the identity-based accomplishments.
When our son was in kindergarten, parents of other students wanted to have a “graduation” ceremony for kiddos moving on to first grade. When my wife and I were asked if we were interested, my wife (being a much better person than I) said, “No, we are going to be out town that day.” I, on the other hand, responded in confusion, “What? Kindergarten graduation to . . . first grade? Um . . . why? Isn’t coloring inside the lines and memorizing the alphabet something 5 years olds should be doing anyway? What life accomplishments can be expected of 5 year olds?”
The parents, though, presented this idea to the principal. No slouch she. The parents received not only “no” but an “Are you out of your narcissistic minds? Kindergarten graduation?! Please leave. And, to be clear, this school does not and will not approve of such a ridiculous idea.” When the parents appealed to the parish pastor he responded with “that’s all she said about this idiotic idea? Have a nice day.” Parents, being parents, were not dissuaded and held their own private “graduation” ceremony, cap and gowns, included. I forget who was valedictorian.
jvb