Elite colleges shun conservative speakers; Biden officials, liberals take center stage at graduation

America’s elite Ivy League universities won’t feature any conservative commencement speakers when they return this spring to in-person graduations for the first time in two years.

And while high-profile Republican politicians have spoken at graduations in the past, including former President George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University in 2015, they have since been relegated to small conservative and private Christian colleges. 

None of the nation’s eight Ivy League universities — Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Cornell, Brown and Dartmouth — has invited any conservative to speak as they return from pandemic-driven virtual ceremonies.

But some are featuring Biden administration officials and Democratic Party allies. 

“Ivy League students graduate into a world knowing little of the other side of the great arguments that characterize our age,” said Peter Wood, president of the conservative National Association of Scholars.

“And what little they do know is filtered through the indifference and hostility of the proponents of progressive ideology,” added Mr. Wood, a former associate provost at Boston University.

Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health for the Department of Health and Human Services, is scheduled to be Yale’s speaker on May 23. Ms. Levine is the first openly transgender person to hold an office that requires Senate confirmation.

Gina McCarthy, who served as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator under President Obama and now is President Biden’s White House national climate adviser, is Columbia’s graduation speaker.

New Zealander Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, leader of her country’s left-wing Labor Party, is the keynote speaker at Harvard’s commencement exercises on May 26.

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party who produced a video for its 2008 national convention, is set to speak at the University of Pennsylvania.

By contrast, officials from former President Donald Trump’s Cabinet did not receive any Ivy League invitations and were shut out from large schools during his term.

Mr. Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, spoke in May 2018 at Ave Maria University, a small Catholic school in Florida, while Ohio State and Rutgers invited Mr. Obama rather than then-President Trump in 2019. 

The University of Notre Dame broke a 56-year tradition by not inviting the newly inaugurated Trump to speak in 2016. Then in 2021, Mr. Biden cited a scheduling conflict to decline the Catholic school’s invitation amid planned protests over his policies supporting abortion rights. 

Robert A. Heineman, a professor of political science at Alfred University in western New York, said university officials walk a tightrope in their speaker invitations between pleasing campus activists and avoiding protests.

“College commencement is one of the most important events in the lives of many students and their families, and college administrators will do everything that they can to make this event pleasantly memorable and thus try to avoid disruptions and mob actions,” Mr. Heineman said.

This year, conservatives will speak again at some small Christian and conservative-leaning schools, mostly in the South.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican, will speak at Columbia International University, a private Christian school in South Carolina.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, also a Republican, is set to speak at Regent University, a private Christian school in Virginia Beach.

“All Americans should be grateful that Christian campuses often platform voices and debates that nonreligious and prestige schools often refuse to acknowledge,” said Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a Protestant watchdog group based in Washington.

Meanwhile, the remaining Ivy League schools will feature nonpolitical speakers.

Dartmouth has not yet selected a commencement speaker. Last year’s speaker was Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed, an alumnus.

In keeping with their respective traditions, Cornell’s speaker will be university President Martha E. Pollack and Brown will feature student speakers.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will deliver Princeton’s address.

Mr. Biden’s chief medical adviser, who has served under seven presidents, also is scheduled to speak at private Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and at a special May commencement “comeback ceremony” for the University of Michigan’s Class of 2020.

That class graduated without a traditional in-person ceremony because of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Only one conservative speaker was invited last year to give a graduation speech at any of the top 100 colleges ranked by U.S. News & World Report, according to a study by the conservative campus advocacy group Young America’s Foundation.

The group said 37 liberals, including activist Bryan Stevenson, television host Oprah Winfrey and musician John Legend, gave commencement speeches at top colleges in 2021.

The lone conservative, Republican donor and energy company executive Thomas Jorden, spoke at the Colorado School of Mines.

But Zachary Greenberg, senior program officer at the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in Philadelphia, said campus backlash has made it increasingly difficult for campuses to invite speakers from either side of the ideological divide even for ordinary lectures.

“Our Disinvitation Database demonstrates how this is an issue targeting both liberal and conservative speakers and viewpoints,” said Mr. Greenberg, whose organization supports “the free exchange of ideas” in higher education.

He noted that “hecklers’ vetoes or calls for dis-invitation” have attempted to shut down events featuring constitutional scholar Ilya Shapiro, Texas state legislative candidate Jeff Younger and former Black Panther Jalil Muntaqim at various universities this year.

But Chris Talgo, a senior fellow at the conservative Heartland Institute in Illinois, said he could not remember any conservative being invited to a top school’s commencement since former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a 2014 appearance at Rutgers in the face of planned campus protests.

“This does not bode well for the future of freedom of speech, let alone diversity of opinion, among today’s college students,” Mr. Talgo said.

Corrections: An earlier version of this story misspelled the last name of former Black Panther Jalil Muntaqim and incorrectly reported Dartmouth’s commencement speaker.