NYU Graduation Speaker Calls Trump a Fascist, Praises Anti-Israel BDS Movement

NYU Graduation Speaker Calls Trump a Fascist, Praises Anti-Israel BDS Movement

A doctoral graduate named Steven Thrasher spoke at New York University’s convocation ceremony and offered a diatribe of left-wing talking points.

Thrasher bashed Trump and Israel while praising the BDS movement, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter.

Mikhael Smits reported at the Washington Free Beacon:

NYU Graduation Speaker Smears Trump, Israel

A graduation speaker at New York University called President Donald Trump a “fascist,” described Israel as an “apartheid” state, endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and praised Occupy Wall Street in a two-minute excerpt from his Monday speech.

Speaking at the convocation ceremony for NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Steven William Thrasher praised his fellow doctoral graduates for their fight against the various perceived evils.

“Many of us have been together at Occupy Wall Street, and at Black Lives Matter protests, and against that fascist in the White House,” Thrasher said to cheers.

When the applause quieted, Thrasher took aim at Israel, which hosts the largest pro-gay “Pride Parade” in the Middle East.

“I am so proud, so proud, of NYU’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace,” he said, “for supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against the apartheid state government in Israel.”

Guy Benson of Townhall notes that Thrasher’s remarks will trouble you even more when you consider that he will teach journalism:

In many ways, this qualifies as a ‘dog bites man’ story. Here we have a professor of journalism — focusing on “social justice” reporting and “issues relevant to the LGBT community” — living down to a hackneyed caricature by delivering a shrill, lazy left-wing diatribe to graduates during a commencement address.

The incoming faculty member at my alma mater, Northwestern’s Medill school, called President Trump a “fascist,” and applauded students fighting to boycott Israel during the convocation ceremony for an NYU’s graduate program. These comments are unremarkable in the sense that they’re simply the latest example of paint-by-numbers campus leftism. But they were offered by someone whose job description presumably entails teaching future reporters, raising questions about when the line between actual journalism and naked ideological activism ceases to exist.

Here’s the video:

As you can probably imagine, some people in the audience found Thrasher’s remarks troubling.

NYU President Andrew Hamilton ultimately issued this statement, via the NYU website:

Statement from NYU President Andrew Hamilton Decrying Student Remarks at GSAS Graduation

“I found it quite objectionable that the student speaker chose to make use of the Graduate School of Arts and Science doctoral graduation to express his personal viewpoints on BDS and related matters, language he excluded from the version of the speech he had submitted before the ceremony. We are sorry that the audience had to experience these inappropriate remarks. A graduation should be a shared, inclusive event; the speaker’s words – one-sided and tendentious – indefensibly made some in the audience feel unwelcome and excluded.

“Let me use this occasion to reaffirm the University’s position – NYU rejects academic boycotts of Israel, rejects calls to close its Tel Aviv campus, and denounces efforts to ostracize or exclude those in the University community based on their location in Israel, their Israeli origin, or their political feelings for Israel.”

Northwestern also responded. Alegemeiner reports:

Northwestern Affirms ‘Unequivocal’ Rejection of BDS After Incoming Professor Endorses Anti-Zionist Campaign

The president and provost of Northwestern University in Illinois affirmed that the school “unequivocally rejects” the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, which an incoming professor at the school endorsed while giving a commencement address at New York University.

Steven Thrasher — a graduate of NYU’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis (SCA), which recently pledged non-cooperation with NYU’s Tel Aviv campus — used a portion of his speech at the doctoral convocation ceremony last Monday to applaud NYU anti-Zionist groups and his SCA colleagues for supporting BDS “against the apartheid state government in Israel.”

He is expected to officially take up his position as assistant professor of journalism and inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair on social justice and LGBTQ media studies at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism on June 1.

It’s rather telling that Thrasher felt so comfortable making such inflammatory statements so openly. It reinforces the notion that the left knows it owns academia.

Featured image via YouTube.

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