A high school valedictorian in Kentucky was barred from delivering his commencement address on Friday, after the school determined that it was “too angry and confrontational.” You mean to tell me that a student might be feeling disillusioned in 2018, a year that has already produced 23 school shootings in just 21…
In 2011, former Jersey Shore star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi collected $32,000 for a speaking engagement at Rutgers University. Today, Governor Chris Christie—our favorite unrequited lover of Bruce Springsteen—signed legislation inspired by Polizzi’s fee, which caps the amount New Jersey state schools can pay speakers at…
On Saturday, April 30, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered the commencement address at the University of Michigan. He took the opportunity to denounce campus safe spaces as feeble efforts to safeguard students against opinions different from their own. He was not, shall we say, playing to his…
In Mississippi, if you cheer at a graduation, you might catch a charge.
If you’ve ever sat through a valedictorian’s speech (in high school or college), you know that while their five minutes is supposed to be spent discussing things like “the future,” the speeches are also generally fairly personal. At Twin Peaks high school in Colorado, however, a teen was barred from speaking at…
“Brothers; brothers from other mothers; sisters; roommates; ‘roommates’; meemaws and papaws; Aunt Ronnys; Uncle Garys; and people who met on Tinder this morning”: just a few of the guests Maya Rudolph addressed at her Tulane University commencement speech last weekend.
On Friday, Mellody Hobson delivered USC’s commencement address during a downpour and asked the graduates to remember just three words—because let’s be honest, few people are really listening anyway—“just add bravery.”
After a North Carolina high school student was sent home in tears on the last day of her senior year for wearing a floral dress that teachers said was a half-inch too short, her mom decided to stand up against the school's arbitrary dress codes by wearing the same outfit to the graduation ceremony days later.
Rachel Jeantel, the close friend who was on the phone with Travon Martin moments before he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman has graduated from high school! A key witness in Zimmerman's trial, her entire identity as a 19-year-old black woman was heavily scrutinized by the media who took jabs at her attitude,…
A high school in Florida is charging parents $200 for "premium" seats with a better view of their child's graduation.
On Thursday, Megan Sugg graduated almost a month early from Glen Burnie High School in Maryland. The occasion, which featured the requisite robes, flowers, and speeches was more subdued than most high school graduations. Megan Sugg was graduating at the bedside of her dying mother. Seeing her daughter graduate was…
High schoolers at graduation tend to do all kinds of things to decorate their mortarboards. The words "Hi Mom" are a classic, "peaked" is less popular, but now a student in Atmore, Alabama is being fined $1000 and denied her diploma after decorating her graduation cap with an eagle feather to celebrate her Native…
Like cicadas, law school graduates working as bartenders, feral cats prowling the abandoned alleyways of Detroit, and people who say they’ve read Infinite Jest but have only really skimmed the first 50 pages, it would seem our society currently contains far too-many high school valedictorians. Depending on your level…
I graduated from college four years ago. I know four years probably seems like an infinitesimal blip to many readers (disclaimer #1: self-aware millennial realizes she has far less life experience than you do), but when I remember the anxious stress case I was at 21 — incapable of imagining life as a gainfully…
Other than George Washington, George Washington Carver, Washington Irving, or Martha Washington, who’d be the best Washington to give the commencement address to the Class of ‘13 at George Washington University? Kerry Washington, of course, who is not only a GW alum, but also plays a D.C. insider on television.
Here's a commencement speech by David McCullough Jr., an English teacher at a Massachusetts high school, who took the opportunity to remind his graduating seniors that they are, in fact, not at all special. "Climb the mountain not to plant your flag," he says. "But to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold…
"My fellow honorary degree recipients who I am so proud to be in the company of — we have an architect, and a climate scientist, a writer and I get to talk because I'm on Glee." So begins Jane Lynch's commencement speech at Smith College and it doesn't get any less charming from there.
It's the time of year when the internet is deluged with condescending lists of "advice for graduates"—stuff like "experience Paris" and "learn to wear purple until you laugh until you cry until you laugh"—and since all of that shit is just literal barf smeared on a laptop screen, I decided I might as well take a stab…
Your gay BFF President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address at the all-women's Barnard College today. During his speech, he encouraged the Class of 2012 to focus on their own personal improvement rather than the "beauty and fashion" obsessed pop culture that surrounds them, but added an important caveat:…
There are many valuable lessons to take away from this clip in which a newly minted graduate totally wipes out on stage: lessons in grace, tact, and not celebrating one's success too soon. We are sure that that this incident hurt in a multitude of ways.