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

The purpose of seeking a humanities education 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 recent 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.

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Fragoza’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 actually revealed was that the epistemology of a kindergartner animates her schema.

The graduating class, supposedly trained in reasoned disagreement, great ideas, and the study 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 some neutral garment, or some multicultural kumbaya accessory. Following the massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, it has become a political symbol—one inseparable from Arab nationalism -- that grew in popularity after the 1936–39 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 many Trump supporters, was divisive or inflammatory. 

And when she declared that "brown" student, 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 travel 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 some who did not know whether their loved ones in Israel had survived Iran’s recent 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 incident. At UCLA’s many graduation ceremonies this weekend, it was the norm.

When student leaders read the School of Public 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 Public Health’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."

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At 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 student 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 education be an act of elevation, not indoctrination. The integrity of the humanities, and the humanity they claim to serve, depends on it.