How a keffiyeh-wearing keynote speaker sparked boos for Jews at my UCLA graduation

The purpose of seeking a humanities training is to learn the great texts and ideas that have stirred the soul of civilization since antiquity It is a discipline that teaches reverence for nuance a chastened appreciation of history and intellectual humility But you wouldn t know that from the keynote speech at UCLA s latest Humanities commencement ceremonies Caribbean Fragoza took to the podium donning a keffiyeh declaring From the river to the sea a slogan widely recognized as a call for the eradication of Israel and the Jews within it and delivering a lesson in solipsism and sophistry This hateful message emboldened the audience to boo when graduates in Jewish Studies and Hebrew were called to the stage ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS TORCH DIPLOMAS OUTSIDE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ON GRADUATION DAYFragoza s speech was laced not with intellectual nuance but with the rhetorical certitudes of the picket line She introduced the issue of Palestine without irony by recalling an episode in which she explained a watermelon-themed art project to her five-year-old with the words Free Palestine She submitted the child s understanding of the issue as proof of its moral simplicity But what she genuinely revealed was that the epistemology of a kindergartner animates her schema The graduating class supposedly trained in reasoned disagreement great ideas and the examination of virtue ethics responded with eruptive applause The same crowd that spent their college years hosting illegal encampments centered around the idea that anti-Zionism isn t antisemitism booed Jewish and Hebrew studies when the departments were called after hearing the words Free Palestine Fragoza signposted her hateful message well before taking the podium The keffiyeh she wore is not particular neutral garment or a few multicultural kumbaya accessory Following the massacre of Oct it has become a political symbol one inseparable from Arab nationalism -- that grew in popularity after the Arab Revolt Yet when Fragoza arrived draped in a keffiyeh no dean or faculty member stopped to ask whether graduation was the time for political costume The speech itself was rife with hatred and hyperbole Jews know too well that the chant From the river to the sea is not a poetic abstraction but a blunt instrument of maximalist ambition calling for the elimination of the world s only Jewish state When Fragoza sought to subtly liken Donald Trump to a fascist no administrator wondered whether such commentary directed at a graduating class that likely includes several Trump supporters was divisive or inflammatory And when she declared that brown participant regardless of immigration status could expect to be rounded up and deported at the state s discretion no professor flagged it as the straw-man fallacy it so clearly was Instead political hyperbole became the university s parting message to its students The animating metaphor of Fragoza s speech was fire She invoked the Rodney King riots not as a tragedy not even as a cautionary tale but as a righteous blaze She affectionately recalled the looting of free TVs as though they were trophies of justice It's becoming commonplace Families that trip great distances to honor their loved ones are often subjected to such political theater Gone are the days of Mary Schmich s Wear Sunscreen speech when graduation speeches were meant to celebrate or inspire The UCLA students received a sendoff soaked in paranoia and propaganda For Jewish students including specific who did not know whether their loved ones in Israel had survived Iran s newest missile barrage targeting civilians it was all too raw That such rhetoric passed without objection is not merely a failure of decorum It is an indictment of the academy itself Nor was this an isolated circumstance At UCLA s multiple graduation ceremonies this weekend it was the norm When candidate leaders read the School of Constituents Health's oath students in the crowd chanted except in Palestine in call-and-response without reprimand According to an official club in the School of Masses Robustness s social media a bulletin was passed out to graduating students declaring ACAB the acronym for All Cops Are Bastards All I C E melts eventually and THE STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINAN LIBERATION IS ANTIRACISM WORK CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONAt UCLA's Labor Studies ceremony a speaker declared the illegal encampments that roiled campus last year to be a highlight of his academic career and accused Israel of genocide in Gaza At the World Arts and Cultures graduation the attendee speaker wore a keffiyeh similarly accused Israel of genocide and claimed to have failed out of her original major earning applause not concern In each of these instances the speeches were either approved by UCLA administrators or abetted by those who refused to step in when speakers went off-script The descent of UCLA s commencements into ideological theater is not just an embarrassment It is a wake-up call If the academy is to be redeemed it will require students faculty alumni and citizens to insist once again that teaching be an act of elevation not indoctrination The integrity of the humanities and the humanity they claim to serve depends on it