Taylor Swift was the commencement speaker at New York University this year. She told the graduates to “learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’” These are the words of “wisdom” from yet another liberal activist on a college campus.
In contrast, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addressed graduates at Boston College. He invoked his own graduation from college in 1990, reminiscing about a speech from the chancellor of West Germany, Helmut Kohl.
“‘This is a time of joy, pride, and gratitude,’ Chancellor Kohl told us. ‘Freedom and unity is becoming reality. The dream of a free, peaceful, and just world will materialize, provided that we do not relax our common efforts.'”
“He, but also we, in the audience, had every right to be enthusiastic,” Mitsotakis said. “Just eight months before my graduation, the Berlin Wall, the concrete symbol of the divide between freedom and democracy on one side and repression and totalitarianism on the other, had come crashing down. I still remember getting goosebumps watching the events unfold on television.”
He warned the graduates that many people thought democracy was easy, but that it requires vigilance.
In my humble opinion, Mitsotakis’s message seems much more profound than ”learn to live alongside cringe.” Mitsotakis was one of just three conservatives who spoke to graduates on campus, according to a survey conducted by Young America’s Foundation of the top 100 universities as ranked by U.S. News & World Report.
The only other conservatives on this year’s list are Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who spoke at Virginia Tech, and Tim Tebow, the iconic quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy and led the Florida Gators to a national championship. Mitsotakis had a personal connection to Boston College, as his wife graduated there in 1989 and their son in 2020.
Not one of the other top 100 universities had a conservative commencement speaker.
YAF has conducted an annual Commencement Speakers Survey for 30 years. During that time, a disproportionate number of speakers at our nation’s top colleges and universities have been liberal ideologues, big donors to liberal causes, and members of the woke media. Sadly, this trend continued in 2022.
Liberal bias on campus goes far beyond commencement speakers. A column published in the National Association of Scholars, “Partisan Registration and Contributions of Faculty in Flagship Colleges,” reveals some interesting trends in higher education.
The researchers found that although the ratio of faculty who identify as or are registered as Democrat versus Republican varies by department, it almost always favors Democrats. Second, they found that the Democrat-to-Republican ratio is typically higher among disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, compared to those in the natural sciences and engineering. Third, they found that the ratio increased over time. In 1999, it was about 4.5:1. It is 10:1 now, and that does not fully account for those so radical that they do not even identify as a Democrat.
Fourth, the partisan bias is more extreme in the most highly rated institutions, such as those in the College Commencement Address survey.
The class of 2022 heard from plenty of left-wing professors and lecturers during their time in college, so having one for a commencement speaker may not have been a surprise to any of them. Harvard University invited New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, well known for her tyrannical response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to give the commencement address. Others included Karl Penn, Deval Patrick, Samantha Power, and Bob Woodward. The featured speaker at the University of Delaware was a teleprompter — I mean, President Joe Biden.
We’ve heard leaders in higher education claim for years that they are all for academic freedom. Now, they are pushing for diversity. The facts show that colleges and universities have no regard for diversity of thought on campus. They certainly don’t encourage academic freedom for conservative faculty, students, or speakers. Hearing the intelligentsia claim otherwise is kind of … cringe.
Scott Walker was the 45th governor of Wisconsin. He now serves as the president of Young America’s Foundation.
