Logan Rozos<\/a>, the Gallatin School student speaker, after he delivered an unapproved speech condemning the war in Gaza as \u201cgenocide\u201d during a graduation ceremony.<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t think they should punish people for having different opinions,\u201d Ms. Awan said. \u201cN.Y.U. can say they back up their students, and that they\u2019re super student-oriented, but they can\u2019t even allow their students to speak freely the way they want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike in past years, there were few overt symbols of political activism at the ceremony. Students had been warned not to bring banners, signs or flags. But there was a brief disruption when one student began waving an Israeli flag in the stands, causing other students to tell him to stop.<\/p>\n
When security officers declined to remove him, and instead issued a warning, the students around him chanted, \u201ckick him out\u201d loud enough to be heard across the stadium.<\/p>\n
Nathan Grossman, 21, identified the student as a good friend and came to his defense, clapping, from a few sections away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw him, I decided to come and stand with him and everybody here,\u201d Mr. Grossman, who studied politics, history and philosophy, said. \u201cIt\u2019s completely within one\u2019s right to have whatever flag or expressionary device they choose at their own graduations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Haidt, an N.Y.U. faculty member who received an honorary degree, spoke over a smattering of boos, turned backs and student chatter. He focused his remarks on how huge corporations such as Meta have made capturing people\u2019s attention a trillion dollar business and advised them to limit their time online.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you treasure your attention, and then use it to do hard things in real life, with other people, then \u2014 and trust me on this as a social psychologist \u2014 your life is going to be amazing,\u201d he told them.<\/p>\n
The student speaker, Armaan Gupta, captured the anxiety of students who were graduating into a bleak job market. During his speech, he took the time to network, albeit quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone\u2019s hiring, please connect with me on LinkedIn,\u201d Mr. Gupta said. The student section erupted in nods, cheers and laughs.<\/p>\n
But it was Mr. Collier, the 31-year-old musician who also received an honorary degree, who came the closest of any of the speakers to acknowledging the challenges over expression that the students had encountered during their time at the university.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you well know, there are some people in this world, fearful people, who feel powerful when your voice is taken away, who will try to make your voice small,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will speak down to you. They will try to silence you, and there is a lot of that happening in the world right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut a real leader knows that real power comes from making the people around you feel powerful,\u201d he told them, to elated whoops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 12,000 or so New York University students who graduated on Thursday made it clear they were in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1692,91585,1693,91284,91586,79973,9,24,55,54,1700,56,88113],"class_list":["post-233368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-colleges-and-universities","tag-collier","tag-freedom-of-speech-and-expression","tag-haidt","tag-jacob-1994","tag-jonathan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-university","tag-ny","tag-pro-palestinian-campus-protests-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}