Nationwide: Colleges Across the Country Disinvite Commencement Speakers
Cases
Case Overview
Every year around commencement time FIREprepares for what we call 鈥渄isinvitation season,鈥 when students and faculty members get together to demand that an invited guest speaker鈥攗sually a commencement speaker鈥攂e disinvited because they disagree with something that speaker did, said, or believes. In 2014, however, disinvitation season rose to unprecedented proportions with a wave of speakers being disinvited or pressured to withdraw from their speaking engagements. This year's commencement controversies included professors at Rutgers University joining together to demand that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice be disinvited as their commencement speaker, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde backing out of her planned commencement address, Ayaan Hirsi Ali being disinvited from hers, and many others. However, 果冻传媒app官方's research shows that while they get the most press around graduation time, speaker disinvitation attempts actually take place on a year-round basis.