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(JTA) — 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.
GWU apologized and announced an investigation after Cecilia Culver made the comments while addressing the school’s liberal arts college on Saturday.
The next day, the school announced the penalty, saying Culver’s conduct “was inappropriate and dishonest” because she had delivered a different speech from the one she had submitted.
Culver had to take frequent breaks for sustained applause she received during her speech, delivered at GWU’s largest graduation ceremony.
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