On May 6, Georgetown University Law Center announced that former Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro, its 2026 commencement speaker, had withdrawn from the ceremony. His apparent offense: writing opinion essays defending Israel and criticizing higher education’s response to the Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.

After a student petition labeled his views “controversial, Zionist, and harmful,” Schapiro chose to pull out lest he “distract from the day’s festivities.”